CHENNAI: Expressing “terrible shock and pain” over some bureaucrats-turned Congressmen like Jairam Ramesh saying criticizing Prime Minister Narendra Modi will do the Congress party no good, Tamil Nadu Congress Committee (TNCC) president K. S. Azhagiri urged the party high command to “crack down” on such “opportunistic leaders and take appropriate action”.
In a statement here on Saturday, Azhagiri said he was deeply saddened by the fact that leaders like Jairam Ramesh should begin to “praise” Modi, at a time when the Congress party was facing “so much repression and intimidation” under the BJP government at the Centre.
“It is nothing but blatant treachery on the part of Jairam Ramesh to see greatness in Narendra Modi and some others to endorse the view when many Congress leaders have been put to several hardships by the government through the filing of false cases,” Azhagiri said in his statement.
“Starting from a bid to usurp the National Herald newspaper, started by Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru, the BJP government has attempted to file false cases against Congress leaders like Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi.
Just because he spoke against the BJP, former Congress Minister P. Chidambaram is now in jail,” Azhagiri said with dismay.
Referring to Narendra Modi, as leading the BJP, having garnered votes both in the 2014 and 2019 Lok Sabha elections “by invoking communalism and not by highlighting the achievements of the BJP,” Azhagiri said the Congress has been fighting the RSS “ideologically and politically” since its inception in 1925.
While both BJP and Congress “are guided by completely different political philosophies” and when the Congress believes in the “lofty principle of unity in diversity”, Mr. Azhagiri wondered how people like Jairam Ramesh, could say that speaking against the Prime Minister will not augur well for the Congress.
“It is all the more distressing to note that all those who now believe that Narendra Modi should not be criticized, had enjoyed extensive benefits as members of the Congress by occupying ministerial berths in the past,” Azhagiri said. Congress leaders who had differences could have conveyed their thoughts to the top party leaders including Mrs Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi instead of going public in this fashion, the TNCC president observed.
For such averments could “only confuse and demolish the resolve of the average field worker of the Congress,” Azhagiri said, adding, showering praises for Mr. Modi at this juncture could only be construed as “weakening” the Congress.
Certain intellectuals in the Congress had done a similar thing in 1977 “after having enjoyed the fruits of being in the Congress, but later left the party during the Janata regime” after Indira Gandhi lost power, Azhagiri recalled.
If people like Jairam Ramesh were still insistent on praising Modi, they should “show some civility and leave the Congress”, added the former Congress MP from Tamil Nadu.
