Hours after Congress veteran Ghulam Nabi Azad resigned from all party posts on Friday, Gandhi family loyalists lined up in support of Rahul Gandhi by launching an all out attack on Azad. The party said Azad betrayed the Congress since his DNA has been “modi-fied”.
Jairam Ramesh, the party’s general secretary in-charge communications, took charge to make a frontal offensive, saying “A man who has been treated with the greatest respect by the Congress leadership has betrayed it by his vicious personal attacks which reveals his true character. GNA’s DNA has been modi-fied.”
Another Gandhi family loyalist and the Opposition leader in Rajya Sabha, Mallikarjun Kharge also attacked Ghulam Nabi Azad with multiple tweets after the veteran leader resigned from the party.
In his multiple tweets, Kharge addressed Azad and asked him not to raise the question on party’s functioning. “When Congress is in difficulty; minorities, Dalits, press, people who speak of democracy being attacked, we’ve to fight BJP-RSS
together. If you run away from battle, you’re betraying party & running away in fear of atmosphere created by Modi Ji,” Kharge said.
He also added that the “attack on Rahul Gandhi is not right because you know all members of that family personally. Sonia Gandhi has always taken advice from you. You were a part of CWC meetings & Core Committee meetings”.
Senior Congress leader addressed Azad and said “It’ll be a loss to him as he’s not with us in our fight against RSS. I am saddened. He should rethink his decision”.Five J-K leaders have also resigned from congress in support of the veteran congress leader Ghulam Nabi Azad’s resignation.
Salman Khurshid, another veteran, extended his wholehearted support for Rahul Gandhi. Khurshid said that it was “not mature” that the people associated with the party for a long time have left it over small issues.
“Rahul Gandhi is our leader and will remain so. We don’t have a give-and-take relationship with Rahul Gandhi. It is our duty to do something for the party. It is not mature that people who were associated with the party for a long time leave over such a small thing,” said Khurshid.
Further expressing hope for the rise of the party, Khurshid said, “It is not that we can’t go anywhere but we will not go and rather remain with the party. We see this country’s future with the party and hope that it will rise.”
Khurshid’s remarks came after Ghulam Nabi Azad and six other party members including RS Chib also resigned from the party.
Congress leader Pawan Khera said the challenges being faced by the party are created by the leaders like Azad. “When he was taking all the decisions, he proudly belonged to the core group. Now, when others are taking decisions, he labels them as sycophants. The challenges faced by Congress today are because of leaders like him,” Khera said in a Twitter post.