Congress leader Manish Tewari on Wednesday termed the decision of former Union minister Ashwani Kumar to quit the grand old party as ‘unfortunate’.
Addressing a press conference, the Lok Sabha MP from Punjab said, “The Congress will be at loss when a leader quits the party. Ashwani Kumar was our parliamentarian from Punjab and also a distinguished Union minister. Unfortunately, he left.”
He further said the ambition for a Rajya Sabha seat makes people do many things.
Kumar, a long-time member of the Congress and a former Union law minister in the party-led UPA government, tendered his resignation on Tuesday after an association of more than 40 years.
In a letter addressed to Congress president Sonia Gandhi, Kumar said, “I am accordingly quitting the party after a long association of 46 years and hope to proactively pursue public causes inspired by the idea of transformative leadership, based on the dignitarian promise of a liberal democracy envisioned by our freedom fighters.”
Speaking to news agency post his resignation, Kumar said the Congress has lost touch with ground reality and no longer reflected the national mood. He added that there was a lack of inspirational leadership and debilitating processes of internal functioning.
He also hit out at the Congress for the way former Punjab chief minister Amarinder Singh was humiliated into resigning from his post and the party last year.
Following a bitter exit from the Congress due to open differences with state unit chief Navjot Singh Sidhu, Singh formed his political front – Punjab Lok Congress (PLC) – that has joined hands with the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) for the Assembly election in Punjab on February 20.