'Self-respect not negotiable', Anand Sharma quits Himachal Pradesh poll panel

New Delhi, August 21

Days after Ghulam Nabi Azad declined to accept the role of Jammu and Kashmir Congress campaign committee chairman, senior party leader Anand Sharma on Sunday resigned as chairman of the Himachal Congress steering committee, formed on April 26 ahead of state Assembly elections later this year.

Writes to Sonia

• Says wasn’t informed of key election strategy meetings. However, he will campaign for party candidates.

Claiming he was “committed to Congress ideology”, Sharma (69), in a letter to party chief Sonia Gandhi, cited instances where he was not informed about key strategy meetings. “My self-respect is non-negotiable… given the continuing exclusion and insults, I was left with no choice but to resign,” he said.

The former Congress Deputy Leader in the Rajya Sabha is embarking on a four-day tour of Himachal from Tuesday to mobilise supporters. Sharma’s dissociation from Himachal poll panel comes as a twin setback to the party within a week. Former J&K Chief Minister Azad had earlier declined to be the Congress’ campaign president in the UT, saying “he had been ignored in consultations” even though the party maintained otherwise.

Sonia Gandhi had on April 26 formed eight Himachal poll committees, including a steering committee with Anand Sharma as chairman and Asha Kumari as convener. In his letter, Sharma said multiplicity of committees and overlapping of functions required clarity for functional purposes.

“I had requested the leadership to clarify the mandate of the steering committee,” Sharma wrote, adding that meetings of the core group of Himachal Congress and senior leaders on election strategy and preparations had since been held both in Delhi and Shimla, but he had “not been kept in the loop”.

“On June 20, meetings of senior leaders, including PCC president, CLP leader and campaign committee chairman and those of other committees were held for election preparations. On August 7 and 8, AICC in charge and central observers visited Shimla. Meetings of the core group, senior leaders and HPCC general house were convened. The steering committee chairman was neither informed nor invited for any of the meetings held, not even for the general house,” he wrote.

Both Azad and Sharma, who have distanced from Congress election planning, are leaders of G-23 grouping, which has been seeking transparent organisational elections from block to the Congress chief and CWC’s level. The G-23 is learnt to be keenly watching the party chief’s election process, which got underway today with the list of voters under preparation.

Sharma’s supporters said it was often argued in Congress circles that he never contested elections. “This is not correct. Anand Sharma contested the 1982 Shimla Assembly seat poll against BJP stalwart Daulat Ram Chauhan and lost by a slim margin. He subsequently filed an election petition in the state high court alleging malpractices by the BJP. The high court ruled in Sharma’s favour and the Supreme Court upheld that order. In a re-election in Shimla, Anand Sharma’s protege Harbhajan Singh Bhajji won,” said sources close to the former Union Minister. By that time, then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi had brought Sharma to the Rajya Sabha, asking him to work at the Centre.