Ghulam Nabi Azad says 'national space conceded to BJP', opens up on G-23

Ghulam Nabi Azad's exit from the Congress is set to deal a huge blow to the party ahead of 2024 elections.

Ghulam Nabi Azad’s exit from the Congress on Friday is being viewed as a huge setback to the party at a time when it is set to launch a mass-contact program ahead of the 2024 national elections in a bid to revive its fortunes. While the parting of ways may have been anticipated for long, Azad - in a scathing resignation letter- shredded the party policies and unleashed an attack on Rahul Gandhi. He said it was unfortunate that the Congress had conceded “national political space to the BJP”, and “state level space to regional parties”.

Ghulam Nabi Azad quits Congress: The senior leader expressed why he was upset in his resignation letter. (PTI)

“This all happened because the leadership in the past eight years has tried to foist a non-serious individual at the helm of the party,” Azad underlined, without naming Rahul Gandhi.

In his letter, which comes two years after 23 senior leaders - including Azad - wrote to Sonia Gandhi on the dire need of restructuring within the party, Azad also opened up on the group of the leaders, who came to be known as “G-23”.

“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 an specially summoned meeting of the extended CWC meeting,” the 73-year-old leader recalled.

“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 added.

Calling the entire organizational election process “a farce and a sham,” Azad also said that “at no place anywhere in the country have elections been held at any level of the organisation”.

“Handpicked lieutenants of the AICC (All India Congress Comittee) has been coerced to sign on lists prepared by the coterie that runs the AlCC siting in 24 Akbar Road. At no place in a booth, block, district or state was an electoral roll published, nominations invited. scrutinised, polling booths set up and elections held. The AICC leadership is squarely responsible for perpetrating a giant fraud on the party to perpetuate ifs hold on the ruins of what once was a national movement that fought for and attained the Independence of India.”

“Does the Indian National Congress deserve this in the 75th year of India's independence is a question that the AlCC leadership must ask itself,” he said.