Ghulam Nabi Azad says people in Congress today are 'useless'

 

Senior Congress leader Ghulam Nabi Azad in a letter to party Interim President Sonia Gandhi resigned from all positions of the Congress including the primary membership of the party on Friday.  (ANI)

After resigning from all positions and the primary membership of the Congress Party, Ghulam Nabi Azad called the "new people in Congress useless" who, he said, are not even aware of the senior leaders. He said, "People there today are useless...It's saddening that Congress has such spokesmen who don't even know about us..."

Ghulam Nabi Azad also said while talking to news agency ANI that he gave blood for the Congress party and he couldn't sleep for six days before and after writing the G23 letter.

The former Chief Minister of Jammu and Kashmir also praised Prime Minister Narendra Modi, saying "I thought PM Modi to be a crude man but he showed humanity," he said. He also recalled an incident when Narendra Modi was the Gujarat chief minister and he called him after a terror incident.

The comment comes days after Azad became another senior member of the Congress to resign citing leadership issues. In his letter of resignation to interim President Sonia Gandhi, he accused Congress MP Rahul Gandhi of “demolishing" the “entire consultative mechanism" within the party.

Ghulam Nabi Azad is the fourth leader from the influential G-23 to leave the party after Kabil Sibal, Jitin Prasada and Yoganand Shashtri.

The Group of 23 or G-23 are senior party members who came out in August 2020 with a “letter of dissent". The leaders in their letter to interim President Sonia Gandhi expressed the need for “collective thinking and decision making".

The Group had influential leaders like Kapil Sibal, Ghulam Nabi Azad, Manish Tewari, Aanand Sharma, Milind Deora, Mukul Wasnik, Shashi Tharoor, etc.

The resignation also comes amid the elections for the post of President of the Congress party. This time elections seem to be different this time as the party may have a non-Gandhi President after a long time. The election schedule was endorsed by the Congress Working Committee and is scheduled on 17 October.