Congress leader Sachin Pilot defended Rahul Gandhi saying it was ‘wrong to hold one individual responsible for the party’s electoral loss in 2014.’ Pilot was referring to former party leader Ghulam Nabi Azad’s resignation letter in which he pinned the blame for the party’s loss in the 2014 General Elections majorly on Rahul Gandhi. Pilot termed Azad’s statement as ‘targeted personal vilification.’
Notably, veteran Congress leader Ghulam Nabi Azad resigned from all party posts yesterday. In a five-page note to party interim president Sonia Gandhi, Azad described the party as ‘comprehensively destroyed’ and noted the Congress at the national level has conceded political space available to it to the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and state-level space to regional parties.
Referring to Rahul Gandhi’s ‘childish behaviour’ of tearing up a government ordinance in ‘full glare of media’ in 2014, GN Azad noted in his letter that ‘this one single action, more than anything else, contributed significantly to the defeat of the UPA government in 2014, which was at the receiving end of a campaign of calumny and insinuation from a combination of the forces of the right-wing and certain unscrupulous corporate interests.’
Talking about ‘Rahul Gandhi tearing up a government ordinance’ debacle mentioned in Azad’s letter, Pilot said, “All of us in the Congress were associated with and part of the UPA government, including Mr Azad. So singling out a person for the defeat in 2014 would not be right.”
Sachin Pilot further noted that the timing of Azad’s letter was ‘very unfortunate’ since the party is all set to take on the ‘misgovernance’ by the BJP. “He (Azad) held various posts for over 50 years and now when there is a need for the country and the party to raise people’s issues, this was uncalled for,” Pilot told news agency PTI.
