Salman Khurshid backs Rahul Gandhi amid rising row in Congress over Ghulam Nabi Azad's resignation

Hours after Congress veteran leader Ghulam Nabi Azad resigned from all party posts on Friday, party leader Salman Khurshid extended his 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 S 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.

GM Saroori, Haji Abdul Rashid, Mohd Amin Bhat, Gulzar Ahmad Wani and Choudhary Mohd Akram are amongst the ones who have left the party in Azad's support.

In his resignation, Azad had cited the "immaturity" of Rahul Gandhi, whom he blamed for "demolishing the consultative mechanism" in the party.

In a hard-hitting 5 page note to party interim president Sonia Gandhi, Azad claimed that a coterie runs the party while she was just a nominal head and all the major decisions were taken by "Shri Rahul Gandhi or rather worse his security guards and PAs".

The development comes days after Azad resigned from the organizational post of Jammu and Kashmir.

Recounting his long association with the Congress and his close relationship with Indira Gandhi, Azad said the situation in the Congress party has reached a point of "no return."

"The entire organisational election process is a farce and a sham. At no place anywhere in the country have elections been held at any level of the organisation. Handpicked lieutenants of the AICC have been coerced to sign on lists prepared by the coterie that runs the AICC sitting in 24 Akbar Road," Azad wrote.

Hitting out at Rahul Gandhi, Azad wrote, "Since the 2019 elections, the situation in the party has only worsened. After. Rahul Gandhi stepped down in a 'huff' and not before insulting all the senior Party functionaries who have given their lives to the party in a meeting of the extended Working Committee, you took over as interim President. A position that you have to continue to hold even today for the past three years."

Azad said that it was "worse still the 'remote control model' that demolished the institutional integrity of the UPA government now got applied to the Indian National Congress."

He continued the attack on Rahul Gandhi but praised Sonia Gandhi for playing a "sterling" role as Congress President in both the UPA governments.

Azad's resignation comes ahead of the 2024 elections and after indications that elections to the post of Congress chief would be postponed yet again. The Congress top leadership has announced a 'Bharat Jodo Yatra'.

Ghulam Nabi Azad is one of the group of 23 leaders who were vocal about a leadership change in the Congress and not being dependent on the Gandhi family for every major decision of the Congress party.

Earlier on Wednesday, lawyer-turned-politician Jaiveer Shergill, resigned as Congress spokesperson stating that the decision-making of the grand-old party is not in consonance with the ground reality and public interest rather it is influenced by sycophancy.

( With inputs from ANI )

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