Former UPA Minister Kishore Chandra Deo resigns from Congress

Aditi Tandon

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, February 4

The Congress on Sunday suffered a huge setback on the eve of Lok Sabha elections with its former minister and ex-member of Congress Working Committee V Kishore Chandra Deo resigning from the party’s primary membership.

Deo said the decision to resign from the Congress was not sudden.

“It was the culmination of what I had been witnessing for the past four years. I felt unwanted in the party, as far as the Congress leadership is concerned. I wrote several notes and letters to Congress president Rahul Gandhi on the deterioration of the party in Andhra Pradesh and ways to revive it. Let alone a reply, none of my notes was ever even acknowledged. You don’t want to be in a place where your suggestions no longer matter and your advice is no more needed. Besides I had been seeking an appointment with Rahul Gandhi since November and didn’t get any. I don’t blame him. I understand he was very busy with three state elections,” Deo told The Tribune.

A former five-time MP, KC Deo said the Congress was extinct in Andhra and the party leadership was listening only to a certain coterie in the state, which is making the party look like the ‘B team’ of the YSRCP.

“The Congress organisation in Andhra is in a state of coma. It has suffered a multi-organ failure and is on life support. The party is literally extinct there and the leadership is not concerned. All my suggestions on reviving the Congress in Andhra have gone unheeded,” Deo said.

He said the Congress decline in Andhra began with the bifurcation of the state and was never stemmed.

“Even then one had told the high command that the manner of bifurcation and the timing was suicidal, though the decision to bifurcate was correct,” said Deo, who was Minister for Tribal Affairs and Panchayati Raj in UPA-2.

To a question about Rahul Gandhi stressing democratisation of the Congress and a culture of listening to others, Deo said, “I am sure he listens to others in Andhra Pradesh. He didn’t listen to me.”

Deo, a seasoned parliamentarian, held key positions under ex-Congress chief Sonia Gandhi.

He was Chairman of the Parliamentary Committee to probe the alleged cash-for-votes controversy in which three BJP members alleged to have been bribed by the Congress in exchange for votes in the June 2008 trust vote the UPA Government faced over the Indo-US nuclear deal.

Deo also headed a Parliamentary Committee to inquire into the allegations of misuse of MPLAD funds and was Chairman, Lok Sabha Committee of Privileges in 2006.

He chaired the crucial Joint Parliamentary Committee (JPC) on Scheduled Tribes and Other Traditional Forest Dwellers (Recognition of Forest Rights) Bill that led to the drafting of the historic Forest Rights Act.

Senior Congress leader from Andhra and ex-minister MM Pallam Raju on Sunday said it was very sad that a senior leader like KC Deo had left the Congress at a critical juncture.

The Congress has in the past too suffered LS poll eve jolts in Haryana, when former leaders Birender Singh and Rao Inderjit had left the party for the BJP. In Assam the party similarly lost Himanta Biswa Sarma and in UP it lost Rita Bahuguna Joshi.