Highlights of Ghulam Nabi Azad's letter of resignation from Cong

NEW DELHI: Senior Congress leader Ghulam Nabi Azad on Friday resigned from the party ahead of organisational elections, terming it comprehensively destroyed and accusing the leadership of committing fraud" on the party in the name of "sham" internal polls.

Delivering another blow to the embattled party that has seen a series of high profile exits, including that of Kapil Sibal and Ashwani Kumar, in the recent past, Azad wrote a five page no holds barred letter to the Congress president detailing his grievances.

Key points from Ghulam Nabi Azad's letter of resignation from Congress:

* Azad recounted his long association with the Congress since he joined the party in the 1970s.

* Azad accuses Rahul Gandhi of demolishing the consultative mechanism within the party.

* All senior and experienced leaders were sidelined and new coterie of inexperienced sycophants started running the affairs of the party.

* Azad terms tearing of a government ordinance by Rahul Gandhi in full media view as a "glaring example" of "immaturity".

* This single action contributed significantly to the defeat of the UPA governme

* Azad said recommendations of the brainstorming sessions in Pachmarhi (1998), Shimla (2003) and Jaipur (2013) to revitalise the party were never properly implemented.

* The detailed action plan to revitalise the party in the run up to the 2014 Lok Sabha elections "lying in the storeroom of the AICC for the past 9 years.

* No effort was made to even examine them seriously despite repeated reminders to Congress President Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi.

* Under Sonia Gandhi's leadership since 2014 and subsequently that of Rahul Gandhi, Congress has lost two Lok Sabha elections in a "humiliating manner". The party also lost 39 out of the 49 assembly elections held between 2014 and 2022.

* Situation in party worsened since 2019 elections. Senior party functionaries insulted at extended Working Committee meetings where Rahul Gandhi stepped down as President in a "huff".

* "Remote control model" that demolished the institutional integrity of the UPA government now applies to Congress.

* You (Sonia Gandhi) just a nominal figurehead, all important decisions taken by Rahul Gandhi or "rather worse his security guards and personal assistants".

* When 23 senior leaders flagged the "abysmal drift" in the party, the "coterie chose to unleash its sycophants on us and got us attacked".

* Congress has reached point of no return, "proxies" were being propped up to take over the leadership of the party, an apparent reference to the upcoming election of the party president.

* This experiment doomed to fail as the "chosen one" would be nothing more than a "puppet on a string".

* Congress has conceded political space to BJP and state level space to regional parties because the leadership has tried to "foist a non-serious individual at the helm of the party.

* Entire organisational election process is "farce and a sham" and a "giant fraud" on the party.

* Before starting Bharat Jodo Yatra, the leadership should have undertaken a 'Congress Jodo' exercise.