Criticism of top Congress leadership, especially the Gandhi family, by veteran Congress leaders after Ghulam Nabi Azad’s resignation is not over yet. Maharashtra’s former chief minister and senior Congress leader Prithviraj Chavan recently made similar remarks, asking why everything in the Congress party has to be about the Gandhi family only. Chavan asked in a conversation with Mumbai Tak, ‘What do you mean by Gandhi family gave so much to the Congress leaders? Is this a registered political party or some Mughal sultanate?’
Senior Congress leader Ghulam Nabi Azad recently left the Congress party. Criticizing him, Rajasthan’s chief minister Ashok Gehlot said, “A person like Azad was given everything by the Congress, today his identity is because of Congress, Indira Gandhi, Rajiv Gandhi, PV Narasimha Rao, and Sonia Gandhi. The way he expressed his thoughts isn’t right.”
When Maharashtra’s senior Congress leader Prithviraj Chavan was asked about this, he said, “It is very important to analyze this mindset lying behind Ashok Gehlot’s statement. He said that the Gandhi family gave so much to the leaders. Is this party personal property? Congress is a political party that functions on democratic principles. The party has a certain constitution that we have submitted to the election commission while registering the party.”
Prithviraj Chavan further said, “Now, tell me, should this party operate according to the constitution or should the leaders of the party be content with whatever is given to them by the Gandhi family? And what do you mean when you say given by the Gandhi family? Is this a Mughal Badshahi system or some sultanate? You are saying like this only because there are only appointments for various posts and not internal elections.”
गांधी परिवाराने दिलं म्हणजे काय? ही काय त्यांच्या वैयक्तिक मालकीची सत्ता आहे का? की आपण मुघल सल्तनत मध्ये जगतो आहे?
— Piyush Jagdish Kashyap (@TheRSS_Piyussh) August 28, 2022
काँग्रेसचे ज्येष्ठ नेते, महाराष्ट्राचे माजी मुख्यमंत्री @prithvrj यांची गांधी घराण्यावर सडकून टीका.#G23 #परिवारवाद #RahulGandhiTheDestroyer pic.twitter.com/kHUsmUNoK5
Prithviraj Chavan added, “Ashok Gehlot is saying like you are appointed by the family on some post of the party and now you should be very happy with that. But why are you appointing in the first place? Why not internal elections? At some point in time, we should seriously think about the last 24 years in which there are no internal elections in the party. Are we going to give serious thought to that? And everyone including me is guilty of that. Why did not we speak up then and why are we speaking only in the last two years? It is because, in that old system, when Sonia Gandhi was leading the party, we were registering victories in elections, and we were in power 10 years ago. And it is our fault that we did not speak. We should have told the top leaders that the last internal elections were held 24 years ago.”
Prithviraj Chavan said, “When PV Narsimha Rao was leading, we had a meeting in Tirupati where a working committee was elected. After that, Sitaram Kesari became the party president who held the elections of the working committee in the Kolkata meeting of the Congress party. There is no election for the working committee in the last 24 years and it is because of this that one dares to say that you are given so much by the Gandhi family. Who are you to give something to us? What do you mean by ‘giving’? Is this like some next generation of some Mughal sultanate that will give something to people and people will receive it with gratitude?”
Prithviraj Chavan is a senior Congress leader from Maharshtra. He worked as the chief minister of the state from 2010 to 2014. Before that, he was a minister of state in the Prime Minister’s office in Dr. Manmohan Singh’s cabinet in the UPA government.
