In a massive setback to the Congress, veteran Congress leader Ghulam Nabi Azad on Friday resigned from the party and launched a blistering no-holds-barred attack on Rahul Gandhi. Singling out Rahul, whom he called a “non-serious individual”, Azad said he had “demolished” the “entire consultative mechanism” in the party, sidelined all “senior and experienced” leaders and let a “new coterie” of “inexperienced sycophants” run the party.
Azad was a member of the Congress Working Committee and a member of the Sonia Gandhi-headed political affairs group.
Amid reports that the Gandhis are keen that Rajasthan Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot take over as Congress president, Azad in his five-page damning letter to Sonia said, “Unfortunately, the situation in the Congress party has reached such a point of no return that now ‘proxies’ are being propped up to take over the leadership of the party.”
“This experiment is doomed to fail because the party has been so comprehensively destroyed that the situation has become irretrievable. Moreover, the chosen one would be nothing more than a puppet on a string,” he said.
Significantly, Azad, a prominent signatory to the letter 23 senior leaders had written to Sonia Gandhi in August 2020 calling for sweeping changes in the party, also mentioned the infamous symbolic tearing up of an ordinance – brought by the Manmohan Singh government to negate a Supreme Court order on disqualifying convicted MPs and MLAs – by Rahul in 2013 and argued that act of his had contributed significantly to the defeat of the UPA government in 2014.
He called it “one of the most glaring examples” of Rahul’s immaturity. He said that “childish” behaviour of Rahul “completely subverted the authority of the Prime Minister and the Government of India.”
That “one single action more than anything else contributed significantly to the defeat of the UPA government in 2014 (the Government) that was at the receiving end of a campaign of calumny and insinuation from a combination of the forces of the right wing and certain unscrupulous corporate interests,” he said in the resignation letter to Sonia, who is abroad for a medical check-up.
Interestingly, Azad lavished praise on her, saying she as the president of the party played a “sterling role” in the formation of both the UPA-I and UPA-II governments.
“However, one of the major reasons for this success was that as President you heeded the wise counsel of senior leaders, besides trusting their judgement and delegating powers to them. However, unfortunately after the entry of Rahul Gandhi into politics and particularly after January 2013, when he was appointed as Vice President by you, the entire consultative mechanism which existed earlier was demolished by him,” he said.
“All senior and experienced leaders were sidelined and a new coterie of inexperienced sycophants started running the affairs of the party,” he said.
Ghulam Nabi Azad said senior and experienced leaders were sidelined
Referring to the Congress’s back-to-back defeats in the Lok Sabha elections in 2014 and 2019 and the string of losses in Assembly elections since then, he said “since the 2019 elections the situation in the party has only worsened.”
“After Rahul Gandhi stepped down in a huff and not before insulting all the senior party functionaries who have given their lives to the party in a meeting of the extended Working Committee, you took over as interim president – a position that you have continued to hold even today.”
He was referring to the meeting of the CWC in May 2019 in which Rahul attacked the senior leaders accusing them of not supporting him in his ‘Chowkidar Chor Hai’ campaign against Prime Minister Narendra Modi over the Rafale fighter jet issue and named senior leaders like P Chidambaram, Kamal Nath and Ashok Gehlot for putting the interests of their sons ahead of the party. He had accused the veterans of putting pressure on the leadership for securing tickets for their sons.
“Worse still the remote control that demolished the institutional integrity of the UPA government now got applied to the Indian National Congress. While you are just a nominal figurehead all the important decisions were being taken by Rahul Gandhi or rather worse his security guards and PAs,” he said in a scathing indictment of Rahul.
Referring to the G 23 letter, which he argued, was written to “flag the abysmal drift in the party,” he said “the coterie chose to unleash its sycophants on us and got us attacked, vilified and humiliated in the most crude manner possible.”
Ghulam Nabi Azad said a “new coterie” of “inexperienced sycophants” run the Congress.
“In fact, on the directions of the coterie that runs the AICC today my mock funeral procession was taken out in Jammu. Those who committed this indiscipline were feted in Delhi by the General Secretaries of the AICC and Rahul Gandhi personally. Subsequently the same coterie unleashed its goondas to physically attack the residence of a former ministerial colleague – Kabil Sibal – who incidentally was defending you and your kin in the courts of law for your alleged attacks of omission and commission,” Azad said referring to the National Herald case.
“The only crime committed by the 23 senior leaders who wrote that letter out of concern for the party is that they pointed out both the reasons for the weaknesses in the party and the remedies thereof. Unfortunately, instead of taking those views on board in a constructive and cooperative manner we were abused, humiliated, insulted and vilified in a specially summoned meeting of the extended CWC meeting,” he said.
“Unfortunately, the situation in the Congress party has reached such a point of no return that now ‘proxies’ are being propped up to take over the leadership of the party. This experiment is doomed to fail because the party has been so comprehensively destroyed that the situation has become irretrievable. Moreover, the chosen one would be nothing more than a puppet on a string,” he said.
“Unfortunately, at the national level we have conceded the political space available to us to the BJP and state level space to regional parties. This all happened because the leadership in the past 8 years has tried to foist a non-serious individual at the helm of the party,” he said.
He said the organisational election process that is underway in the party was a farce and a sham.
“At no place anywhere in the country have elections been held at any level of the organisation. Handpicked lieutenants of the AICC have been coerced to sign on lists prepared by the coterie that runs the AICC sitting in 24 Akbar Road. At no place in a booth block, district or state was an electoral roll published, nominations invited. scrutinized, polling booths set up and elections held. The AICC leadership is squarely responsible for perpetrating a giant fraud on the party to perpetuate its hold on the ruins of what once was a national movement that fought for and attained the Independence of India,” he said.
‘A farce and a sham’: Ghulam Nabi Azad on Congress election process
“Does the Indian National Congress deserve this in the 75th year of India’s independence is a question that the AICC leadership must ask itself,” he said.
Azad concluded the letter saying the Congress has “lost both the will and the ability under the tutelage of the coterie that runs the AICC to fight for what is right for India.”
“In fact, before starting the Bharat Jodo Yatra, the leadership should have undertaken a Congress jodo exercise across the country. It is therefore with great regret and an extremely leaden heart that I have decided to sever my half a century old association with the Congress and hereby resign from all my positions including the primary member of the Congress,” he said.