Azad jumps on ‘go away Congress’ bandwagon; exodus of leaders from get together continues unabated

By PTI

NEW DELHI: The exodus of senior Congress leaders, as soon as seen as mainstays of the get together, continues unabated with Ghulam Nabi Azad leaping on the “leave Congress” bandwagon at a time when the get together is struggling to shore up its dwindling electoral fortunes.

Several leaders, lots of them a part of the get together’s highest decision-making physique Congress Working Committee (CWC), have exited not too long ago, citing causes starting from the get together’s lack of ground-level presence to its management’s shortcomings.

Azad resigned from the get together on Friday forward of the organisational polls, terming the Congress “comprehensively destroyed” and accusing the management of committing “fraud” on the get together within the title of “sham” inside elections.

Delivering one other blow to the embattled get together that has seen a sequence of high-profile exits, together with that of Kapil Sibal, Ashwani Kumar and Sunil Jakhar, within the latest previous, Azad wrote a no-holds-barred letter to Congress president Sonia Gandhi, detailing his grievances.

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Azad’s exit comes months after one other “Group of 23” (G-23) chief, Sibal, resigned from the get together and filed his nomination as a Samajwadi Party-backed impartial candidate for the Rajya Sabha polls from Uttar Pradesh.

He was elected to the Upper House of Parliament in June.

The G-23 members had written to Sonia Gandhi, searching for organisational reforms, in 2020.

The Congress has did not stem the exodus of leaders regardless of the promise of reforms, together with structural adjustments and prominence to kids, at its brainstorming session in Rajasthan’s Udaipur in May.

Two influential leaders — Sunil Jakhar and Hardik Patel — stop the get together in fast succession this yr.

Jakhar, a former Punjab Congress chief with ties with the get together spanning three generations, stop even because the get together’s Chintan Shivir was on in May.

Patel, a younger chief who got here into prominence with the Patidar quota agitation in Gujarat, was elevated because the working president of the state unit in July 2020 as a part of efforts to strengthen the organisation and strongly tackle the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in its stronghold.

He subsequently stop the Congress and launched a scathing assault on its management.

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The Congress is seen making little effort to woo its leaders again and Rahul Gandhi has been saying for fairly a while in get together boards that anybody who succumbs to the stress of the BJP on this “fight for ideology” is free to go away.

Earlier this week, Congress spokesperson Jaiveer Shergill stop the get together, alleging that sycophancy is consuming into the organisation like “termites”.

In a letter to Sonia Gandhi, Shergill resigned because the get together’s nationwide spokesperson, saying the first cause behind his resolution was that “the ideology and the vision of the current decision makers of the Congress is no longer in sync with the aspirations of the youth and a modern India”.

Earlier this yr, RPN Singh, a former Union minister, a CWC member and the son of late Congress chief CPN Singh, joined the ranks of Jitin Prasada and Jyotiraditya Scindia, each CWC members who stop the get together to affix the BJP during the last couple of years.

While Prasada is the son of Jitendra Prasada, Scindia’s father was Madhavrao Scindia, each Congress veterans.

Singh’s exit got here simply months after Sushmita Dev, one other younger Congress chief and the daughter of former Union minister Santosh Mohan Dev, stop the get together to affix the Mamata Banerjee-led Trinamool Congress (TMC).

The story of senior leaders leaving the Congress started forward of the 2014 Lok Sabha polls when the get together misplaced Haryana heavyweights Birender Singh and Rao Inderjit Singh.

Both went on to turn into ministers in Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s first cabinet.

There have been different examples as nicely.

Former Assam Congress stalwart Himanta Biswa Sarma joined the BJP in 2015 and climbed the saffron ladder to turn into the chief minister of the state.

Some different outstanding Congress leaders and former ministers within the UPA authorities who stop the get together and joined the BJP are S M Krishna and Jayanti Natarajan.

Krishna is a former Karnataka chief minister and Natarajan was the Union setting minister throughout the UPA regime.

The Congress additionally misplaced as soon as Gandhi household loyalist and the scion of the erstwhile Amethi royal household, Sanjay Sinh, to the BJP final yr.

Former Maharashtra chief minister Narayan Rane after which chief of opposition within the state Assembly Radhakrishna Vikhe Patil stop the get together to affix the BJP in 2019.

The Congress additionally suffered a jolt in Assam in 2019 when its chief whip within the Rajya Sabha, Bhubaneswar Kalita, joined the BJP.

He is now a Rajya Sabha member from the state.

Also within the northeast, the Congress suffered setbacks when its former chief minister in Manipur N Biren Singh joined the BJP in 2016, citing variations with then incumbent Ibobi Singh.

In Arunachal Pradesh, Chief Minister Pema Khandu left the Congress in 2016 earlier than the Assembly polls.

In Uttar Pradesh too, forward of the 2017 Assembly polls, former state Congress chief Rita Bahuguna Joshi stop the get together.

Other outstanding faces who left the Congress within the latest previous embody Tamil actor Khushboo Sundar and former Congress spokesperson Tom Vadakkan, each of whom joined the BJP.

While the leaders quitting the Congress have cited numerous causes, from not being heard by the management to leaving for higher prospects, the get together has repeatedly referred to as out their weak ideological moorings.