TANWAR QUITS CONGRESS POLL PANELS
DISSENT Haryana ex-chief writes to interim president Sonia Gandhi expressing resentment over the party affairs in state
Accusing his political adversaries of “selling tickets and ruthlessly killing the political career of hardworking Congress leaders,” the sulking former Haryana Congress president Ashok Tanwar on Thursday resigned from various in-house committees related to October 21 Haryana assembly elections. He dispatched a hard-hitting twopage letter to Congress’ interim president Sonia Gandhi.
› The AICC has become insensitive towards the Haryana Congress which has been hijacked by an individual ...it has become Hooda Congress..
ASHOK TANWAR, Congress leader
CHANDIGARH: A ccusing his political adversaries of “selling tickets and ruthlessly killing the political career of hardworking Congress leaders,” the sulking former Haryana Congress president Ashok Tanwar on Thursday resigned from various in-house committees related to October 21 Haryana assembly elections.
In a veiled attack at former two-time chief minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda, the beleaguered former state party chief on Thursday dispatched a hardhitting three-page letter to Congress’ interim president Sonia Gandhi, listing a plethora of grievances and pin-pointing how a section of party leaders in Haryana attacked him and sabotaged the party when he was the party president.
“I will, however, continue my duties as primary member of the Congress party,” Tanwar, who was last month replaced as state party chief after having held the post for near six years by former Union minister Kumari Selja, said in his letter.
His decision to resign as member of various committees set up for Haryana Vidhan Sabha elections comes after he on Wednesday held a demonstration along with ticket aspirants outside Gandhi’s residence in Delhi, alleging irregularities in ticket distribution.
Ahead of the assembly elections, the knives are again out in the faction-ridden Haryana Congress, which has been grappling with internal squabbles over the leadership issue after BJP had dethroned the Congress in 2014.
As seeking ouster of Tanwar was the key demand of Rohtak strongman Hooda, now Tanwar has hit back at his bête noire, but without naming him in his letter.
“…but all through my tenure (as Congress chief), a section of leaders were only focused in attacking me because of their personal prejudices and selfish interests,” Tanwar said in his letter, informing Gandhi that he had not been left with any other option but to resign from the responsibilities she had assigned to him.
“The same individuals,” he further wrote, “sabotaged the party…and didn’t allow the party to function properly in Haryana by stalling the appointments of committees and office bearers”.
Taking another indirect hit at his opponents, Tanwar said it was “excruciating to see the same individuals” taking decisions instead of allowing just, free and fair selection of candidates that he said was the “hallmark” of Gandhi’s leadership.
Stating that he was writing this letter with “immense pain” and after “exhausting all available avenues to get my voice heard”, Tanwar fired another salvo, saying: “These individuals are selling tickets and subverting the great political legacy of the Congress party by ruthlessly killing the political career of the hardworking Congress leaders.”