Ex-J&K deputy CM among 50 Congress leaders quitting to back Ghulam Nabi Azad

In a massive setback for the Congress, more than 50 senior leaders of the party, including former Jammu and Kashmir deputy chief minister Tara Chand, on Tuesday resigned from the party in support of Ghulam Nabi Azad. They submitted a joint resignation letter to Congress president Sonia Gandhi, news agency PTI reported.

Azad, 73, a former chief minister of Jammu and Kashmir, also quit the Congress last week, ending his five-decade association with the grand old party. In his resignation letter to Congress interim president Sonia Gandhi, Azad alleged that the party has been “comprehensively destroyed”, lashing out at Rahul Gandhi for “demolishing” its entire consultative mechanism.

Azad said he will soon a launch a national-level party from Jammu and Kashmir.

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Chand and several others, including former ministers Abdul Majid Wani, Manohar Lal Sharma, Gharu Ram and former MLA Balwan Singh, announced their resignations from the party, including its primary membership, at a press conference.

"We have submitted a joint resignation letter to Congress president Sonia Gandhi in support of Azad," PTI quoted Singh as saying.

The latest mass resignation comes close on the heels of the resignations of a dozen prominent Congress leaders, including former ministers and legislators, besides hundreds of Panchayati Raj Institution (PRI) members, municipal corporators and district and block level leaders.