Rahul Gandhi aide Ruchi Gupta quits Congress

New Delhi, Dec 19: Ruchi Gupta, the national in-charge of the Congress' student wing, the National Students' Union of India (NSUI) quit the Congress party on Saturday due to "delays in organizational changes".

The resignation of a key Rahul Gandhi aide comes on a day the Congress attempted to mend an internal rift with a meeting between Sonia Gandhi and "dissenters" who had written a letter criticising the leadership and calling for an overhaul of the organisation.

"I regret to announce that I have resigned. I am grateful to Rahul ji and Sonia ji (Rahul Gandhi and Sonia Gandhi) for giving me this opportunity," she tweeted along with an opinion piece published in The Hindu newspaper.

Reportedly, Gupta was upset over the delay in the approval of state unit appointments.

In a message posted by her on the National Students'' Union of India (NSUI) office bearers'' WhatsApp group, Gupta said, "I am writing to you to announce that I have resigned.

"As you know, important organisational changes have remained pending for very long: the national committee took 1 year 3 months; state president orders have remained pending for months."

"Many other state units are waiting for reorganisation to make space for new activists. These continuing delays by the GS(O) (general secretary organisation K C Venugopal) are damaging the organisation but in the present circumstances, it is not possible to escalate repeatedly to Congress President. The situation has thus become untenable," she said.

In her Op-Ed published in the Hindu on Saturday, Gupta wrote, the Congress is "the only party which can provide a coherent national framework for a viable Opposition formation. Unfortunately, the Congress party is failing to do justice to this moment, and to its own deeply inspiring legacy."

"Earlier being a Congress-person imbued an identity strongly correlated to our national identity... This identity has been lost. Consequently, we lack political programmes to give supporters an accessible and respectful sense of belonging," she wrote.

"While the Congress has always been a mass-based party, the need for organisation is especially acute right now to bypass media subservient to the ruling party and to tailor messages for different constituencies," she wrote.

She said she believes only Rahul Gandhi could lead the party and asserted that "this is not a sycophantic statement - if any other leader had to emerge in the party, he would have done so over the last year".

"At present, this leadership can only be provided by Rahul Gandhi. This is not a sycophantic statement - if any other leader had to emerge in the party, he would have done so over the last year," she wrote.