By IANS
Mumbai : Senior Congress leader in Maharashtra Col. Sudhir Sawant quit as legislative council member Saturday, charging AICC general secretary Margaret Alva with working for “vested interests” and intemperate behaviour.
In a letter to Congress president Sonia Gandhi, Sawant pointed out that the state was hit by bomb blasts, floods, farmers’ suicides and power crisis, but “the response of the party is lackadaisical.”
In his letter, two days before the Nagpur session of the state legislative assembly begins, Sawant has cited Alva’s style of functioning and the uncertainty and rumours about change of leadership of Chief Minister Vilasrao Deshmukh since the past few months as the reasons for his drastic step.
He has accused Alva, AICC general secretary who is in charge of Congress affairs in Maharashtra, of humiliating and sidelining loyal Congressmen to the “dustbin”, and sacking many party office-bearers.
A former member of parliament and AICC secretary, Sawant has alleged that the move to remove Deshmukh as the chief minister is being spearheaded by Alva.
Sawant said Alva has removed many district party presidents and office-bearers across the state. One of the pretexts was the one-man-one-post formula that was never applied in the past for party office-bearers.
“Many AICC office-bearers are holding government posts. If the one-man-one-post is a rule, the first axe should fall on Prithviraj Chavan and many other AICC office-bearers, MPs and MLAs,” he stated.
He accused Alva of throwing norms to the winds by unconstitutionally removing duly elected office-bearers and appointing new ones at the behest of vested interests “for money”.
Sawant had earlier written to the party high command about these alleged corrupt activities and misconduct of Alva and even offered to prove before an enquiry committee that she exchanged money for posts.
Lashing out at Alva, he said: “She is impetuous, intemperate and her main drawback is her lack of respect for leaders and workers, (she) is supportive of rich politicians. She has brought the Congress down behind the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) in the last elections.
It is inconceivable that she should openly attack the (state) government and continue as a general secretary. If she cannot follow party discipline, then the same cannot be expected from others.”
Sawant, an important leader from the coastal Konkan region of the state, explained how the Congress drew its strength from the Konkan region owing to the loyalists. He stressed there was a need to unite the party there instead of “selling the party to newcomers or importing leaders and workers”. The reference was to the entry of several former Shiv Sena leaders, including Narayan Rane who joined the Congress in 2004 and is at present revenue minister.
He reminded Sonia that Alva had deserted the late prime minister Indira Gandhi during her most difficult times and “such leaders should be thrown out of the party”. Submitting his resignation as MLC, Sawant requested that he should not be re-nominated.