UP Congress leaders slam Azad over letter

nLUCKNOW: After venting their ire against senior party leader Jitin Prasada, Congress leaders in the state are now targeting senior leader Ghulam Nabi Azad and questioning his actions during his role as the All India Congress Committee general secretary in charge of Uttar Pradesh.

Azad is one of the 23 senior Congress leaders who signed the controversial letter to Congress president Sonia Gandhi, asking for a full-time party president.

The letter outlined an 11-point agenda to usher in reforms in the 134-year-old organisation, called for an introspection of the reasons behind the party’s “steady decline”, and appealed to the Congress to take the initiative for the formation of a “national coalition of democratic and secular forces” against the Centre’s ruling Bharatiya Janata Party.

Now, former Uttar Pradesh Congress Committee president Nirmal Khatri has accused Azad of forcing the Congress-samajwadi Party alliance on the party in the 2017 assembly elections in Uttar Pradesh.

“As far as I know, Rahul Gandhi too was opposed to the alliance, but probably kept quiet due to Azad’s recalcitrance and defeatist political thinking….his principles of political science focused on politics of alliance,” said Khatri in a post on the social media, directly targeting Azad.

In an interview to news agency ANI, Azad, who is leader of opposition in the Rajya Sabha, defended the letter, saying “Any Congress worker having a genuine interest in the party will welcome the letter.” He added in that interview that if the party didn’t change, it would continue to be in opposition for the next 50 years.

“Azad forgot to mention his role as in charge of Uttar Pradesh where he destroyed the Congress. In 1996, the Congress alliance with the BSP failed to work. He (Azad) entered into an alliance with the SP in 2017 and the Congress won the lowest number of seven seats in the state assembly,” Khatri said.

He questioned Azad for pointing out that no election had been held in CWC for the past 23 years and asked why he chose to remain silent all these years. “CWC resolved that no leader will ever speak about internal issues. Azad’s interview (to a news agency) is a violation of the spirit of the resolution,” he said.