MLC, B R Kundal quits Congress

Accuses party of promoting ‘nepotism’, ‘selling’ mandate

PS BALI

Jammu, Nov 13: Accusing party of promoting ‘Nepotism’ and ‘selling’ mandate for the upcoming assembly elections, MLC and J&K ex-chief secretary, B R Kundal today quit Congress and decided to contest independently from RS Pura.

Talking to Greater Kashmir, Kundal said   “Congress high command has betrayed people of the state as well as its senior leaders by giving mandate to ‘corrupt’ faces for the ensuing elections”.

He said, “We are very much disappointment with the decision of high command of choosing ‘corrupt’ people against ‘loyal’ senior leaders ”. He added that several ‘blue-eyed’ candidates have been given mandate.

“Keeping aspirations of the people at stake, the Congress high command has given mandate arbitrarily to ‘chosen few’, which are already in the ‘bad-books’ of the people,” he maintained and added that this decision of congress has hurt the emotional susceptibilities of the party followers, which senior leaders managed to accrue over the years.

Making his announcement, Kundal said that during last six years, since he joined the Congress in 2008, he had worked hard to expand party’s manifesto and to draw masses towards it.

He claimed , “In the past Six years, I had been working to strengthen the party at grass root level and succeeded in the endeavor as large number of sarpanchs, panchs and prominent people, besides youth had joined the party under my command,”. He added that he had to quit the party as he felt that the Congress high command has ditched senior leaders for introducing some ‘corrupt’ people.

He said, “I made all my sincere efforts to revive Indian National Congress in RS Pura, but party made me a victim of conspiracy hatched by a coterie of discredited and dishonest persons that ultimately made me to resign from the party.”

He further alleged that the party has ignored senior leaders, after certain people offered ‘money’ for mandate. “A huge sum of money has been offered to the party high command for giving mandate to the new faces, superseding senior leaders,” he said.

He said that he will contest forthcoming assembly elections independently from RS Pura and will show the congress party of his value among people.

When asked about joining any other party, Kundal said that he will not join any other party and contest independently.

Kundal had joined Congress party after giving away coveted post of chief secretary in May 2008.

Pertinently, the ongoing elections to Legislative Assembly have broken all previous records of rebellion and defections from one political party to another. All four major political parties,-National Conference, Congress, PDP and BJP have suffered as well as benefitted from the defections. Six former Ministers and 12 sitting legislators including eight MLAs and four MLCs have so far resigned from their parties and defected to other parties or having decided to contest the election as Independent candidates.