Kerala’s Youth Congress vice-president CR Mahesh, who had the other day asked party vice-president Rahul Gandhi to act or quit, on Wednesday announced his resignation from his position and the decision to leave the party following a concerted attack against him from State Congress leaders for questioning the high command.
‘I don’t want to continue with a rotten existence in the party,” Mahesh, who has criticized the party leadership several times in the past also, told newsmen in Kollam. Senior leaders including former Chief Minister Oommen Chandy, Opposition leader Ramesh Chennithala on Wednesday reacted fiercely against Mahesh’s criticism of the top party leadership.
Through a Facebook post the other day, Mahesh had asked Rahul Gandhi to quit the leadership if he was not interested in leading the party from front at a time when its “roots were rotting away” all over the country. He had also vehemently criticised the senior leader from Kerala, Congress working committee member AK Antony, saying he was living like a Mauni Baba in Delhi.
“I will continue as a Congressman throughout my life but I am stopping political activity for the time being. There is no point in continuing in this party in a rotten manner by pocketing the loss of the essence of my political existence,” he said, adding that his intention was not to attack Rahul Gandhi but to underline the fact that the party needed a strong leadership.
Mahesh said that he was extremely annoyed by the criticisms unleashed against him by leaders like PC Vishnunath, known as a Chandy-loyalist. “Why should these people allege that I am helping the Sangh Pariwar when I am putting forward some positive criticism against my own leadershipIJ” he asked, adding that people like Vishnunath need not teach him politics.
Mahesh said that Congressmen themselves were responsible for the defeat of the party in the last Assembly election in the State. When the Congress had faced a terrible defeat in Kollam district in the Assembly polls, he was defeated in Karunagappally constituency by a small margin only, he said, indicating that some Congressmen were behind his defeat.
After his Facebook post stirred a hornets’ nest in the Congress, Mahesh had on Tuesday itself tried to bring the heat down by stating that he had not questioned the authority of Rahul Gandhi, whom he considered as a gentleman politician, but some people surrounding him were misleading him.
“That Mahesh has been forced to give up his position and political career for questioning Rahul Gandhi is yet another example of the Congress’s unwillingness to face even constructive criticisms with tolerance. The bottom line is that, for the Congress, the present high command is infallible and unquestionable,” said a former member of the Pradesh Congress Committee.
Responding to Mahesh’s criticisms against the party high command, Chandy and Chennithala indicated that Congressmen in Kerala need not question Rahul’s leadership. “Mahesh shouldn’t have made that public statement against Rahul Gandhi. He had told me he had not intended to criticize Rahul,” said Ramesh Chennithala.
Even as observers felt that Mahesh had to resign just because he had criticized the top leadership, Oommen Chandy claimed that the Congress was a party that believed in high democratic values. He said that Mahesh’s criticisms against Rahul had no relevance and that he should not have raised such criticisms.