New Delhi: In a major setback to the party, senior Congress leader Ghulam Nabi Azad in a letter to Congress President Sonia Gandhi on Friday resigned from all positions of the Congress party including the primary membership of the party.
‘The Indian National Congress has lost both the will and the ability under the tutelage of the conterie that runs the AICC to fight for what is right for India’, wrote Azad in his resignation letter to Sonia Gandhi. ‘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 Indian National Congress’, wrote Azad in a 5 page resignation letter.
This latest high-profile exit from the Congress party comes after the polls for the Congress President were deferred. Azad’s resignation follows a series of exits of senior leaders from the party, including Jyotiraditya Scindia, Jaiveer Shergil, Jitin Prasada, amongst others. This development comes just weeks after Azad resigned from the post of Chairman of the Jammu and Kashmir Congress campaign committee, just hours after he was given the appointment. According to sources, Azad had refused to assume the post of Chairman of the campaign committee citing ‘health reasons’ and had conveyed the same to the Congress leadership, thanking them for the responsibility.
The move from Azad came at the time after disgruntled voices within the J&K unit of the Congress rose to a crescendo after the Congress leadership rejigged the whole unit. ‘We are unhappy as senior leaders were not consulted before taking a decision on J&K PCC chief. We have resigned from the party’s coordination committee as a protest against the recent announcements of the PCC chief. I have resigned from the Congress’ primary membership’, said former Congress MLA Haji Abdul Rashid Dar.
Notably, Ghulam Nabi Azad is one of the group of 23 leaders who were vocal about a leadership change in the Congress and not being dependent on the Gandhi family for every major decision of the Congress party. He has been upset since being ignored for Rajya Sabha after he retired as Leader of Opposition in the upper house. The issue has come on fore when the party is to begin process of electing new president.
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