After he resigned as chief of Himachal Pradesh's Steering Committee, Congress leader Anand Sharma said that the party needed to "think beyond the Gandhis".
Speaking to NDTV, Sharma said that after Indira Gandhi was expelled, it was "people like us" who kept Congress afloat. "This party belongs to all of us," he said
On the party leadership being confined to Rahul and Priyanka Gandhi, "Is the Congress only confined to these two names? Are we not ridiculing the history of the Congress party?" he added.
In a jolt to the Congress ahead of Himachal Pradesh polls, the senior leader resigned from the chairmanship of the party's top committee for the state, saying he was left with no choice after the "continuing exclusion and insults"
Sharma's resignation days after Azad refused to head Campaign Committee in Jammu and Kashmir has brought back the limelight on the deepening of fissures between the G-23 and the party ahead of the Congress election for a president whose process was to start on Sunday.
The relationship between Sharma and the Congress leadership strained in the past two years after he joined the G-23 leaders seeking clarity on the leadership issue.
The party did not renominate Sharma, whom Indira Gandhi brought to Rajya Sabha in 1984 or Azad to Rajya Sabha though it chose Gandhi loyalists to ten seats the party could win in the elections two months ago.
Sharma, in a letter to Congress president Sonia Gandhi on Sunday, reportedly said he was not consulted on the planning for the assembly elections.
"I have resigned with a heavy heart from the Chairmanship of the Steering Committee of the Congress for the Himachal Elections. Reiterating that I am a lifelong Congressman and remain firm on my convictions," he tweeted.
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