CHENNAI: The Congress Party’s fight with itself took a turn for the worse, as B S Gnanadesikan sent a letter to party president Sonia Gandhi, offering to step down from the post of Tamil Nadu Congress Committee (TNCC) president. Sources in the party say Gnanadesikan’s decision came after he took offence to the tone in which he was spoken to by party in-charge for the State, Mukul Wasnik, at a meeting of the All India Congress Committee on Wednesday.
Gnanadesikan’s resignation offer came with the concurrence of his liege, G K Vasan, after extensive consultations at Vasan’s residence in Chennai. Former Union minister of State V Narayanasamy too visited Vasan’s house before Gnanadesikan’s letter to Sonia Gandhi was made public.
“I tried my level best to bring unity in the party and conducted several meetings, district tours, Parliamentary review committee meetings, apart from the small meetings in the party head-quarters (sic),” read Gnanadesikan’s letter to Sonia Gandhi. “To enable you to reconstitute the Pradesh Congress Committee without any hindrance, I am offering my resignation as President of the TN Congress Committee. Kindly accept the same,” he added.
According to sources in the party, there “was some ugliness over AICC’s instruction to remove the pictures of Kamaraj and Moopanar from the TNCC membership card. Vasan and Gnanadesikan had objected to this, saying such an act would make it difficult to run the party in Tamil Nadu. To this, Wasnik had said he could have Gnanadesikan removed from his post on a matter of two days if he did not immediately comply,” said a functionary.
“This has angered Gnanadesikan, whose assertion has been that no one needs to wait for two days, and that he would leave the post himself rather than be removed by someone from Delhi,” the functionary added. The bone of contention that has led to Gnanadesikan’s resignation has been the AICC instruction that only the pictures of Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi can be carried on the membership card. Gnanadesikan is set to address a press conference on Friday morning.