Former Union minister Akhilesh Das on Tuesday resigned from the party and the Rajya Sabha in protest against what he described as a “coterie” controlling AICC general secretary Rahul Gandhi, and party managers are having a hard time fielding questions on whether a group of select leaders has indeed emerged as a power centre in the organisation. Mr Das, son of former Uttar Pradesh chief minister Banarsi Das, has raised the issue at a time when the party is keen to project Mr Rahul Gandhi as a charismatic leader ahead of the general elections.
Mr Das, who refused to directly attack either Congress president Sonia Gandhi or her son Rahul, told reporters that a new caucus around Rahul was trying to control who could and who could not get appointments with him. He claimed that senior leader and human resources development min ister Arjun Singh “had been asking for an appointment for the past four months, but failed to get it.” He then went on to tell reporters: “I too had requested a meeting with him, but had not been granted one.” Nearly a decade ago, just after Mrs Sonia Gandhi had become Congress president, the late Jitendra Prasada and the late Rajesh Pilot had come out openly against the “coterie” surrounding Mrs Gandhi.
Mr Akhilesh Das is perhaps the first leader in the Congress to raise the banner of revolt against the caucus surrounding Rahul Gandhi.
He said on Tuesday that the party had “lost miserably” in the Uttar Pradesh Assembly elections because of the “bunch of rootless leaders” surrounding Mrs Gandhi’s son. “They misled Rahulji, asked him to give tickets on the basis of information fed into computers. They have no idea of political management,” he said.
Mr Das, a former mayor of Lucknow, said he might contest the Lok Sabha elections from there next year.