Punjab Chief Minister Amarinder Singh handed in his resignation to the Congress on Tuesday, levelling a series of questions and accusations against the party and its individual leaders -- including party chief Sonia Gandhi, her son and daughter. Uploading the seven-page letter on Twitter where he did not mince words about the crisis in the Congress, his removal and the prospective alliance with the BJP, the 79-year-old announced that his new party will be called the "Punjab Lok Congress".
Mr Singh had stepped down from the top post in Punjab in September after a year-long bitter feud with Navjot Singh Sidhu and a section of party MLAs. The party, he had said, had humiliated him.
His letter was a no-holds-barred recount of his treatment by the party and the Gandhis.
In the letter, the former Chief Minister associated with the Congress for nearly four decades, said Rahul Gandhi and Priyanka Gandhi Vadra, instead of reining in Navjot Sidhu -- "an unstable individual" and "an acolyte of the Pakistani deep state" - had patronized him.
Mrs Gandhi, he said, had "turned a blind eye" to the "shenanigans of this gentleman who was aided and abetted by the General Secretary In-charge Harish Rawat, perhaps the most dubious individual I had the occasion to make acquaintance off (sic)".
Citing the legislature Party meeting called on Twitter that finally led to his exit, he said he understood the "intention was to belittle and humiliate" him. The next morning, Mrs Gandhi called him and asked for his resignation from the top post, which he did "without batting an eyelid", he wrote.
"You probably thought that if this third world emergency imposition kind of circus that happened in June 1975 was not enacted, I would have whisked the MLAs to some resort... Despite knowing me for the better part of my 52 years in Public life and that too at a deeply personal level you never understood me or my character. You thought I was getting on in years and should be put to pasture," his letter read.
Invoking Rajiv Gandhi, he wrote that he has felt "deeply hurt by your conduct and that of your children who l still deeply love as much as my own children, having known their father, since we were in school together since 1954, which is for 67 years now. Having been put through this exercise, during past few months, I do hope that no other senior Congress person is subjected to the ignominy that I was put through".
Hitting out at the party's stance about his decision to align with the BJP, Mr Singh questioned a series of party appointments and decisions - including its alliance with the Shiv Sena in Maharashtra.
"When you chose to appoint a person who had been with the BJP for 14 years as PPC President, I thought to myself where has the Congress come to. However his appointment was only a continuum given that Nana Patole from the BJP and Revnath Reddy from the RSS had earlier been appointed as Presidents of Maharashtra and Telangana respectively. A party that today hurls accusations at me for taking up the farmers cause with the NDA/BJP Government at the Centre did not think twice before getting into bed with the Shiv Sena when it suited it. Who is Communal and who is therefore Secular it is for the people to judge," Amarinder Singh wrote.
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