Phulodevi Netam steps down as women’s wing chief of Chhattisgarh Congress

Rajya Sabha MP Phulodevi Netam said another woman colleague should get an opportunity to hold this post

RAIPUR: Rajya Sabha MP Phulodevi Netam on Tuesday stepped down as president of the Chhattisgarh Mahila Congress, saying she wanted to make way for other colleagues in the party.

Phulodevi Netam had been the president of the women’s wing of the Chhattisgarh Congress for seven eyars (Twitter//NetamPhulodevi)

Netam, a prominent tribal leader from the Bastar region, had led the state unit’s women’s wing for nearly seven years.

Netam was the legislator from Keshkal seat (1998-2003) in the Bastar division and unsuccessfully contested the 2014 Lok Sabha elections from Kanker. She was elected to the Rajya Sabha in 2020.

Netam posted her resignation letter on her Twitter handle. In the letter, she pledged to continue working for the party with dedication and requested the party to give the post to “some other woman colleague”.

“It has been seven years since I have been on the post and I believe that now another female colleague should get an opportunity to hold this post,” she said in the letter addressed to the acting president of the party’s women’s wing Netta D’Souza.

The development comes nearly a week after Chhattisgarh Congress president Mohan Markam was replaced with Lok Sabha MP Deepak Baij in an organisational reshuffle ahead of the assembly elections due by the year-end. Markam, a lawmaker from Kondagaon, was later inducted into the Bhupesh Baghel cabinet.