The Congress suffered a setback in Telangana ahead of key assembly elections when a prominent official, who was also the first president of the state unit, resigned, blaming a "unjust environment" within the party.
"I have reached a point where I feel that I can no longer thrive in such an unjust environment," Ponnala Laxmaiah, a former minister of united Andhra Pradesh and a prominent Congress leader, stated in his resignation letter to party chairman Mallikarjun Kharge.
Laxmaiah claimed that veteran leaders were not being treated with respect and that there was favoritism inside the party toward newcomers. He recounted two incidents that had a profound impact on him.
"It is deeply unfortunate that senior leaders like me have had to wait for months to discuss party concerns, and I have personally experienced the frustration of waiting for ten days in Delhi to meet AICC general secretary KC Venugopal," he said in his letter of resignation.
"When a group of 50 Backward Class (BC) leaders from Telangana went to Delhi to request prioritization for BCs, they were denied even a meeting with AICC leaders," he said. This is an embarrassment for Telangana, which takes pride in its self-respect."
Lakshmaiah further claimed that he was unfairly blamed for the Congress' failure in Telangana in 2014, despite the fact that the party had suffered a nationwide setback at the time. In 2015, Lakshmaiah was dismissed as president of the PCC.
There are rumors that Lakshmaiah will join the Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS). While he stated that he has not made such a choice as of yet, he did compliment the ruling party for recognizing and granting MP, MLC, and corporate posts to even the smallest BC leaders.
Lakshmaiah, ironically, is not the first Congress politician to leave the party, citing unjust treatment and humiliation at the hands of the party's central leadership. The grand old party has lost several leaders who have complained about similar treatment by party leadership.
This does not bode well for the party, which was devastated in the previous assembly elections and is attempting to resurrect itself. In the 2018 assembly elections, the Congress gained only 19 seats with a vote share of 28.43%. The ruling BRS, then known as the Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS), had won 88 seats with a vote share of nearly 47%.
This time, though, chief minister K Chandrashekhar Rao is up against a determined BJP, which produced a strong showing in the Greater Hyderabad Municipal Elections. The BJP, which could win only one seat in the state in 2018 with a vote share of about 7%, is motivated to make gains and dethrone the Congress.
0 Comments