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Indian Overseas Congress secretary Virender Vashisht has condemned party leader Prithviraj Chavan, a member of the dissident group of 23, for speaking out against Rahul Gandhi during recent television debate shows.
In a mail to the party's disciplinary committee head Tariq Anwar, Vashisht has demanded action against the former Maharashtra chief minister. In his letter, Vashisht said: "I want to draw your attention towards the false statements by Prithviraj Chavan on TV channels for the past few days regarding the internal elections of the Congress party. I demand action against him for also speaking falsely against Rahul Gandhi." This comes after the former Maharashtra chief minister had on August 30 met Ghulam Nabi Azad, who was also a part of the G-23 group who are seeking reforms inside the party, at the latter's residence. Chavan was accompanied by other G-23 members ex-Haryana CM Bhupinder Hooda and Anand Sharma. The meeting came days after Azad resigned from Congress citing the "immaturity" of Rahul Gandhi, whom he blamed for "demolishing the consultative mechanism" in the party. The 'G23' leaders included Shashi Tharoor, Azad (former leader), Mani Shankar Aiyar, Manish Tiwari and others who have been vocal about organisational changes in the Congress party. In the hard-hitting five-page letter, Azad had claimed that a coterie runs the party while Sonia Gandhi was just "a nominal head" and all the major decisions were taken by "Rahul Gandhi or rather worse his security guards and PAs". Azad had said he was submitting his resignation with "great regret and an extremely leaden heart" and severing his about 50-year-long association with the Congress. He was earlier Leader of Opposition in Rajya Sabha. Recounting his long association with the Congress, Azad had said the situation in the party has reached a point of "no return." "Unfortunately, the situation in the Congress party has reached such a point of no return that now 'proxies' are being propped up to take over the leadership of the party. This experiment is doomed to fail because the party has been so comprehensively destroyed that situation has become irretrievable. Moreover, the 'chosen one' would be nothing more than a puppet on a string," he said. (ANI)
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