Congress leader Anand Sharma quits as party's Chairman of Foreign Affairs

New Delhi: Senior Congress leader Anand Sharma on Sunday resigned as the Chairman of party's foreign affairs department to enable its reconstitution and bringing in young blood.

Sharma, a Congress Working Committee member, has led the department for around a decade. The Department was last reconstituted in 2018.

In his letter to Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge, he said the committee needs to be reconstituted to bring in younger leaders of potential and promise and that will ensure continuity in its functioning.

Sharma, who has been party's leading face on international affairs for around four decades, recalled that he had conveyed his views on reconstituting the department earlier to Kharge and Congress Parliamentary Party chairperson Sonia Gandhi.

At present, Partap Singh Bajwa, Manish Tewari, Pallam Raju, Deepender Hooda, Sajiv Joseph, Ragini Nayak and Sanjay Chandok are part of the department.

Sharma said the department has been actively engaged in building and strengthening the Congress's relations with like-minded parties across the world.

He also said the Congress has strong relations with major parties in Asia, Africa, Middle East, Europe and Latin America and the department has established an institutional mechanism for the exchange of leadership delegations with fraternal parties and international organisations.

"I have had the privilege to have been proactively associated with all major international initiatives of the Congress since mid 1980s as Youth Congress president. These included: NAM youth conference 1985 and the historic 'Anti Apartheid Conference' in 1987. These were universally acclaimed," Sharma said.