Congress central leadership does not consult state unit: Gnanadesikan

A day after resigning as Congress' Tamil Nadu unit chief, B.S. Gnanadesikan Friday charged the party high command with not consulting the state leadership on party issues.

Speaking to reporters here, Gnanadesikan, who Thursday sent in his resignation "to enable the leadership reconstitute a new state unit", said the party high command does not consult the state unit on any party related matters.

He also attacked the decision to remove the pictures of late party leaders K.Kamaraj and G.K.Moopanar from party membership cards.

"Only when the party is strong at the state level a party would be able to grow at the national level," he said, stressing that state level leaders have to be empowered for the party to grow.

Gnanadesikan said he tried to bring about unity amongst various factions in the state unit and held several official meetings, but many office bearers did not attend the meetings or even visit the party headquarters.

He also charged former union minister P.Chidambaram with playing a solo role.

Chidambaram has not visited the party office for the past three months and has held some meetings on his own, Gnanadesikan alleged.

Gnanadesikan, said to be part of former union shipping minister G.K.Vasan's faction in the party, is perhaps the only state chief in the Congress to come out openly against the high command.

The Congress was considered "untouchable" in the state for all other parties during the Lok Sabha elections over its stand on the Sri Lankan Tamil issue and corruption charges.

Even its long-time ally, the DMK, walked out of the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government.

The party's leading lights, Vasan and Chidambaram, did not contest the general election. Chidambaram's son Karti Chidambaram contested from his father's Sivaganga constituency but lost as the party drew a blank in all the 40 Lok Sabha seats it contested (39 in Tamil Nadu and the lone Puducherry seat).

The party high command reportedly did not take the state unit into confidence while trying to patch up an alliance to fight the Lok Sabha polls with DMK and others.

However, according to some Congressmen, the resignation by Gnanadesikan is a strategy to retain the state unit's chief's post in the Vasan camp.