Karnataka Congress President DK Shivakumar (DKS) responded to Gulam Nabi Azad’s resignation on Saturday, August 27 and said that he was “deeply saddened and hurt'' by the way Azad expressed his feelings against the party that “gave him everything”. DKS had also questioned whether Azad had written the letter or it was written “by someone else in another party”.
Rebutting some of Azad’s allegations in his letter, the Congress leader said, “Mr Azad in his letter has mentioned about the experience of some of the younger leaders, I want to ask Mr. Azad was he born experienced? When he joined the party during Indira Gandhi’s time, was he experienced? The answer is - he joined the party, gained experience, and that is how he became a tall leader.” He added that if Azad disagreed with the way Rahul Gandhi resigned as All India Congress Committee’s (AICC) president in 2019, he must have expressed his disagreement in 2019 itself and asked why this was being brought up now.
Azad made a reference to Rahul Gandhi tearing up an ordinance by the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government that aimed to negate the Supreme Court’s order that ruled convicted lawmakers can’t continue in office. Azad said Rahul Gandhi's actions in 2013 was “immature” and “one single action more than anything else contributed significantly to the defeat of the UPA Government in 2014.” In response to this, DK Shivkumar said that Azad should have expressed his discontent with this action in 2013 itself.
Speculating about the reason why Azad has made public his discontent with the party now and not in 2013, DK Shivkumar said that Azad was a part of the decision making process and body, member of the Rajya Sabha and leader of opposition in the upper house. “Today in 2022 when the Congress party is going through a crisis nationally and Mr. Azad does not get a Rajya Sabha seat, he suddenly woke up and realised that his conscience is saying something different?”, he asked.
“Congress is a big national caravan and people will come and people will go but it will continue to move forward. If he was not agreeing with the party he should have just resigned. But unfortunately he is not speaking on his own”, the MLA added.