Manas Dasgupta
NEW DELHI, Aug 21: Close on the heels of the veteran Congress leader Ghulam Nabi Azad quitting the party’s panel for Jammu and Kashmir, another senior party leader and also a member of the dissident G-23 group, Anand Sharma on Sunday resigned as chief of the steering committee of the party’s Himachal Pradesh unit.
In a letter to Congress President Sonia Gandhi ahead of assembly elections in Himachal Pradesh expected along with Gujarat later this year, Sharma said he felt left out of the party’s decisions ahead of the polls and that his self-respect was “non-negotiable”, sources said. Insisting that he was a lifelong Congressman and would remain true to the party, Sharma said he had no option but to quit the party post for his “self-respect.”
“Reiterating that I am a lifelong congressman and remain firm on my convictions… given the continuing exclusion and insults, as a self-respecting person – I was left with no choice,” he wrote on Twitter.
Sharma has told the Congress chief that he has been ignored in the consultation process. However, he told Ms. Gandhi that he will continue to campaign for the party candidates in the State. The former Union Minister and deputy leader of the Congress in Rajya Sabha was appointed as chairman of the steering committee in Himachal Pradesh on April 26.
Both Azad and Sharma are prominent leaders of the G23 grouping which has been critical of the decisions of the party leadership. The grouping, comprising prominent veterans, including Bhupinder Singh Hooda and Manish Tewari, has been insisting on genuine elections right from the block up to the Congress Working Committee (CWC) level. Sharma, who is considered among the tallest leaders of Himachal Pradesh, has reportedly told the Congress president in his letter that his self-respect has been hurt as he has not been consulted or invited for any of the meetings of the party.
Ghulam Nabi Azad, another member of G-23, had also resigned as the chairman of the campaign committee and the political affairs committee for Jammu and Kashmir on similar grounds exposing fissures in the Congress.
Sharma, who first contested assembly elections in 1982 and was given a Rajya Sabha ticket by then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi in 1984, has been a Rajya Sabha member since and has held several key positions in the party.
