Ashwani Kumar, Former Law Minister, Quits Congress: “Consistent With My Dignity”

Former Union Minister Ashwani Kumar today quit the Congress, his party of more than four decades, calling it a decision that was “consistent with my dignity”.

Ashwani Kumar was Law Minister in the Manmohan Singh-led Congress government between 2009 and 2014.

In his resignation letter to Congress president Sonia Gandhi, shared by news agencies, Dr Kumar wrote, “Having given my thoughtful consideration to the matter, I have concluded that in the present circumstances and consistent with my dignity, I can best subserve larger national cause outside the party fold.”

He also said he “hoped to proactively pursue public causes inspired by the idea of transformative leadership, based on the dignitarian promise of a liberal democracy envisioned by our freedom fighters.”

Dr Kumar told the Indian Express that “internal processes” of the Congress diminished individual leaders.

“The continuous decline of the Congress in terms of vote percentage, in terms of popular support clearly shows that the party is out of sync with the way the nation thinks,” he told the Express.

He also said on Rahul Gandhi that the “national mood is not in favour of the alternative that the Congress party presents to the people in terms of its future leadership.”

This is the latest exit from the Congress, weeks after the party lost RPN Singh, another former Union Minister and a big leader in Uttar Pradesh.

Last month, RPN Singh, a leader who was close to the Gandhis and was part of Rahul Gandhi’s core team, quit the Congress and joined the BJP within hours.

The high profile exits started with Jyotiraditya Scindia, who in 2020 switched to the BJP, bringing down the Madhya Pradesh Congress government. He is now Aviation Minister in Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government.

Last year, another key UP leader, Jitin Prasada, left the party. He soon joined Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath’s government.

But Dr Kumar is the first senior Union Minister to quit the party since the Congress lost power in 2014. He was counted among the party’s veterans and a big Gandhi family loyalist.

The inner churn in the Congress went public when a group of 23 leaders – dubbed the G-23 – wrote a letter to Sonia Gandhi calling for major reforms in the party, including a visible and “full-time leadership” and collective decision-making.

Ironically, Dr Kumar had strongly defended the Gandhis at the time and had criticised the letter-writers.

Most leaders in the group remain with the Congress but they have often voiced their criticism openly.

Recently, the announcement of a Padma award for Ghulam Nabi Azad – one of the G-23 – ignited another round of Congress versus Congress with Gandhi family loyalists accusing the former Union Minister of leaning towards the BJP.