The Shiv Sena took on the 23 senior Congress leaders, who wrote to party chief Sonia Gandhi demanding a “full time and effective leadership” in an editorial in its mouthpiece Saamana on Thursday. It questioned the leaders’ support over the past six years when Rahul Gandhi faced scathing attacks from the Bharatiya Janata Party, and said that they were more responsible for demoralising him than the BJP leaders.
The editorial remarked that none of signatories of the letter were mass leaders, questioning their ability to become active leaders within their own party. The signatories of the said letter include Ghulam Nabi Azad, Kapil Sibal, Anand Sharma, Shashi Tharoor, Mukul Wasnik, Prithviraj Chavan, among others.
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“Rahul Gandhi was active and he singlehandedly took on the Modi-Shah duo. He led a change in the country in the Assembly elections. Where were these active letter-writing champions when the BJP attacked him below the belt? The old Congress leaders have demoralised Rahul Gandhi more than the below-the-belt attacks of the BJP under Modi-Shah,” the editorial read.
The Sena had earlier backed the leadership of Rahul Gandhi. Sena leader Sanjay Raut had said that the Gandhi family was the “Aadhaar card of the Congress” and the demand for a non-Gandhi to lead the party was inappropriate.
Attacking the signatories of the letter, the Sena also said that none of them had the ability to stir a crisis within the party. “Those who have written the letter are reaching the age of 70. And none of them is a mass leader even at a district-level, let alone country- or state-level. Despie that, most of them have enjoyed chief ministirial posts, Union ministership, and several other important posts. P Chidambaram is a noted lawyer, when did he become a leader... What do we say about Prithviraj Chavan and Milind Deora? Prithviraj Chavan had to seek thehelp of Sharad Pawar to win an election in Satara. It is laughable that such people have sought active leadership in the Congress.”
{{/usCountry}}Attacking the signatories of the letter, the Sena also said that none of them had the ability to stir a crisis within the party. “Those who have written the letter are reaching the age of 70. And none of them is a mass leader even at a district-level, let alone country- or state-level. Despie that, most of them have enjoyed chief ministirial posts, Union ministership, and several other important posts. P Chidambaram is a noted lawyer, when did he become a leader... What do we say about Prithviraj Chavan and Milind Deora? Prithviraj Chavan had to seek thehelp of Sharad Pawar to win an election in Satara. It is laughable that such people have sought active leadership in the Congress.”
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