Rahul Gandhi aide Ruchi Gupta quits Congress
New Delhi, Dec 19: Ruchi Gupta, the national in-charge of the Congress' student wing, the National Students' Union of India (NSUI) quit the Congress party on Saturday due to "delays in organizational changes".
The resignation of a key Rahul Gandhi aide comes on a day the Congress attempted to mend an internal rift with a meeting between Sonia Gandhi and "dissenters" who had written a letter criticising the leadership and calling for an overhaul of the organisation.
"I regret to announce that I have resigned. I am grateful to Rahul ji and Sonia ji (Rahul Gandhi and Sonia Gandhi) for giving me this opportunity," she tweeted along with an opinion piece published in The Hindu newspaper.
I regret to announce that I have resigned. I am grateful to Rahul ji and Sonia ji for giving me this opportunity.
— Ruchi Gupta (@guptar) December 19, 2020
Congress has a crucial role in the Indian polity today but... My views in the Hindu today (jpg) https://t.co/urmBBdLNcl & Express last year https://t.co/RwlSSW7lo7 pic.twitter.com/rHYsCKxlDQ
Reportedly, Gupta was upset over the delay in the approval of state unit appointments.
In the article Gupta wrote, the Congress is "the only party which can provide a coherent national framework for a viable Opposition formation. Unfortunately, the Congress party is failing to do justice to this moment, and to its own deeply inspiring legacy."
Sonia Gandhi set to hold discussions with Cong top brass, including 'letter writers', this weekend
"Earlier being a Congress-person imbued an identity strongly correlated to our national identity... This identity has been lost. Consequently, we lack political programmes to give supporters an accessible and respectful sense of belonging," she wrote.
"While the Congress has always been a mass-based party, the need for organisation is especially acute right now to bypass media subservient to the ruling party and to tailor messages for different constituencies," she wrote.
Gupta said that to achieve all this, the Congress needs a "strong and interventionist Congress president".
"At present, this leadership can only be provided by Rahul Gandhi. This is not a sycophantic statement - if any other leader had to emerge in the party, he would have done so over the last year," she wrote.