Ghulam Nabi Azad on 'childish' Rahul Gandhi: 'His security guards, PA took...'

Ghulam Nabi Azad, who resigned from the Congress party's primary membership on Friday, launched a vitriolic attack against Rahul Gandhi in his resignation letter to Sonia Gandhi, accusing the MP of running the party via remote control, ending the consultative mechanism, and indulging in childish behavior. The veteran politician minced no words as he squarely blamed Gandhi for the party's state in the country and said his tearing of the ordinance in 2013 led to the party's defeat. In a stinging barb at Rahul, Azad claimed his personal assistant and security guards took important decisions. 

"While undoubtedly as the President of the Indian National Congress you played a sterling role in the formation of both the UPA-1 and UPA-2 governments. However, one of the major reasons for this success was that as President you heeded the wise counsel of senior leaders, besides trusting their judgment and delegating powers to them. However unfortunately after the entry of Shri Rahul Gandhi into politics and particularly after January, 2013 when he was appointed as Vice President by you, the entire Consultative mechanism which existed earlier was demolished by him." he said. 

"One of the most glaring examples of this immaturity was the tearing up of a government ordinance in the full glare of the media by Shri Rahul Gandhi. The said ordinance was incubated in the Congress Core Group and subsequently unanimously approved by the Union Cabinet presided over by the Prime Minister of India and duly approved even by the President of India. This childish behavior completely subverted the authority of the Prime Minister and the Government of India. This one single action more than anything else contributedsignificantly to the defeat of the UPA Government in 2014 which was at the receiving end of a campaign of calumny and insinuation from a combination of the forces of the right-wing and certain unscrupulous corporate interests," he added. 

He also listed the string of defeats the party has had to endure since 2014 when Narendra Modi came to power. 

He also said Rahul Gandhi's stepping down after the 2019 general elections debacle was insulting to senior party functionaries.

"Since the 2019 elections, the situation in the party has only worsened. After Sh. Rahul Gandhi stepped down in a huff and not before insulting all the senior Party functionaries who have given their lives to the party in a meeting of the extended Working Committee, you took over as interim President. A position that you have continued to hold even today for the past three years. Worse still the 'remote control model' that demolished the institutional integrity of the UPA government now got applied to the Indian National Congress. Whileyou are just a nominal figurehead all the important decisions were being taken by Shri Rahul Gandhi or rather worse his security guards and PA." he added. 

Referring to the letter shot down by 23 senior Congress leaders demanding sweeping changes in the party, he said, "In the August of 2020 when I and 22 other senior colleagues including former Union Ministers and Chief Ministers wrote to you to flag the abysmal drift in the Party the coterie chose to unleash its sycophants on us and got us attacked. vilified and humiliated in the crudest manner possible. In fact on the directions of the coterie that runs the AICC today my mock funeral procession was taken out in Jammu. Those who committed this indiscipline were feted in Delhi by the General Secretaries of the AICC and Shri Rahul Gandhi personally. Subsequently, the same coterie unleashed its goondas to physically attack the residence of a former Ministerial Colleague Sh. Kapil Sibal who incidentally was defending you and your kin in the courts of Law for your alleged attacks of omission and commission."

Gandhi also made a veiled reference to reports that Ashok Gehlot might become the Congress President.  

"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 situation has become irretrievable. Moreover, the 'chosen one' would be nothing more than a puppet on a string," he added.