Red-faced Congress plays down Sibal's exit

The timing of Sibal’s announcement was crucial as it also came a day after Sonia Gandhi’s Task Force 2024 held its first meeting, writes Amit Agnihotri.

New Delhi:An embarrassed Congress sought to play down the resignation of former union minister Kapil Sibal, who filed his nomination for the Rajya Sabha as a Samajwadi Party nominee. “It has been proved now that Kapil Sibal was raising questions over the leadership due to personal interests. We had in mind that he might leave the party. Delhi had sent him to Parliament but he ignored the party workers and raised questions on leadership,” Delhi Congress chief Anil Chaudhary told ETV Bharat.

Former MP and senior UP Congress leader Rajesh Mishra told ETV Bharat: “Kapil Sibal’s leaving the party will not impact the Congress. A leader who cannot get votes in Delhi, won’t be able to harm the party nationally.” Sibal’s resignation came as a fresh setback to the grand old party which recently lost some high-profile leaders like former Punjab chief Sunil Jakhar and former Gujarat working president Hardik Patel left the Congress. While Jakhar has joined the BJP, Hardik may also move in that direction.

Earlier, former law minister Ashwini Kumar had resigned from the Congress before the Punjab assembly polls while former ministers RPN Singh and Jitin Prasada had quit the grand old party ahead of the UP assembly polls. The timing of Sibal’s announcement was crucial as it also came a day after Sonia Gandhi’s Task Force 2024, headed by P Chidambaram, held its first meeting to discuss a roadmap for the party's revival after a series of devastating election defeats. Sibal, who did not attend the recent Congress Chintan Shivir in Udaipur from May 13-15, said he had resigned on May 16.

Read: Important to have an independent voice, Kapil Sibal on leaving Congress

The revelation from Sibal came a day after two other G23 members, Ghulam Nabi Azad and Anand Sharma. were named by party chief Sonia Gandhi in a key Congress panel to prepare for the 2024 national elections. Sibal’s Rajya Sabha nomination is likely to create a tiff between the Congress and the former ally SP as he filed his nomination papers in the presence of Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav.

Sibal had represented Azam Khan, who was recently released on interim bail by the Supreme Court after two years in prison. Sibal however claimed he is an independent nominee for the Rajya Sabha polls.In 2020, Sibal was one of the signatories to the G23 letter to Sonia demanding a complete overhaul of the organization and a full-time elected president.

Sibal, a noted lawyer, had defended the Congress in various cases in the Supreme Court, including the one related to the National Herald newspaper started by former prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru. But he got into the bad books of the Congress high command after he recently suggested that the Gandhis should leave the grand old party to pave way for better leadership.