Congress leader Pardeep Chhabra quits party

Senior Congress leader from Chandigarh Pardeep Chhabra, who has been at loggerheads with the party's city unit president and has also attacked senior leader Pawan Kumar Bansal, on Friday resigned from the party's primary membership.

Chhabra's move comes a day after the Congress’ city unit served him a notice over his alleged anti-party activities.

"Today, I resign from the primary membership of @INC India,” Chhabra tweeted.

Chhabra was the Congress’ city unit president till February this year. He was replaced by Subhash Chawla.

“An upright man shall never tolerate indignation & lies. Knowing when to walk away is #Wisdom, being able to is #Courage, Walking away with your head held high is #Dignity…,” Chhabra further wrote on Twitter.

In the past few weeks, Chhabra had been attacking Chawla, alleging that he was being ignored and not being called for party meetings.

However, in one of the latest invites for a party meeting sent to him on Tuesday by the city unit, Chhabra had expressed his inability to attend it citing personal reasons.

In his resignation letter addressed to Congress chief Sonia Gandhi, Chhabra said he was resigning from all posts and primary membership of the party.

He also attacked former Union minister and ex-MP Pawan Kumar Bansal alleging he treated him as a “puppet”.

“I had joined as a member of NSUI in Chandigarh 35 years back as I believed in the ideology of the party and the vision of inclusive, liberal and progressive politics of Indian National Congress. I had served for the people of Chandigarh as councillor for 15 years, senior Deputy Mayor of Chandigarh and Mayor of Chandigarh,” he wrote in his letter.

“...I have never asked, sought rewards or returns for myself in the hope that the party will respect my contributions,” Chhabra said.

He said in the last few years certain things have convinced him that “neither my services are valued nor I was getting the respect that every individual deserves”.

“I was being treated as a puppet who was controlled by Pawan Kumar Bansal. I had no other option but to take this step which I hadn't imagined even in my dreams because of the dictatorship attitude of Bansal,” he said, adding he was now feeling “suffocated”.

In an open letter to the city's Congressmen last week, Chhabra had alleged that those who had been working for the party for more than three decades had been ignored in the recent list of office bearers released by the party's city unit.

While he congratulated those who had been made office bearers in the committee constituted by the city unit of the Congress, he said the “Chandigarh Congress leadership has today started a new innings for 'Congress-mukt Chandigarh'”.

Chhabra also questioned why women had not been given 30 percent representation in the newly constituted committee.