Rift in Cong widens as both camps dig in
NEW DELHI: The retirement of Congress leader Ghulam Nabi Azad from the Rajya Sabha and the party’s inability or unwillingness to find a slot for him appears to have acted as the trigger for a fresh wave of hostilities between a group of leaders who, last August, asked for sweeping changes in how the party is run, and the party’s leadership.
The leadership pushed organisational elections to after the coming assembly polls, but recent events indicate that the outcome of the upcoming assembly polls may well determine the next course of action for the two sides who appeared to double down on Tuesday, despite avowals to the contrary, including that there is just one side.
On Tuesday, angry workers from the Congress’s youth and student wings protested against Azad, burnt his effigy and demanded his removal from the party for his praise of Prime Minister Narendra Modi. The party chose to defend the action of its activists and senior Congress
leader Abhishek Singhvi asked: “How can you question anyone who wants to protest what he didn’t like about Azad’s speech?”
Azad and 22 others (together referred to as G23) wrote a letter to party president Sonia Gandhi in August seeking changes in how the party is run, including holding organisational elections, in an effort to improve its ability to take on the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).
On Monday, two senior leaders, Anand Sharma (part of G23) and West Bengal state Congress chief Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury sparred publicly on Twitter over the state Congress’ decision to join hands with the ISF, a platform floated by a cleric Abbas Siddiqui.
The Congress, in this case, decided to back Chowdhury. Addressing the media on Tuesday, Singhvi said: “The Con