Jaiveer Shergill Quits Congress: Resigns From All Posts, Cites ‘Sycophancy'

Shergill cited the "ideology and vision of current decision makers" as being a concern in his resignation letter.

In another blow to the grand old party, Congress leader Jaiveer Shergill resigned from the post of the national spokesperson of the Congress on Wednesday, 24 August.

He later clarified that he has "quit" the party. "I have resigned from all posts in the Congress party," he told the media.

In his resignation letter to interim Congress President Sonia Gandhi, Shergill wrote, "I hereby resign from the post of National Spokesperson of the party. The primary reason being that the ideology and the vision of the current decision makers of the Indian National Congress is no longer in sync with the aspirations of the youth and modern India."

"Furthermore, it pains me to say that the decision making is no longer for the interests of the public and the country, rather it is influenced by the self-serving interests of individuals indulging in sycophancy and consistently ignoring the on-ground reality. This is something I cannot morally accept or continue to work with."

Jaiveer Shergill's resignation letter

He told the media that he had been seeking time from Rahul, Priyanka, and Sonia Gandhi for a year but had not been welcomed to their office. "I'm being pushed to bow down before people because they're close to the top leadership," he was quoted as saying by news agency ANI.

This is the third major resignation from a party post that the Congress has witnessed in the past eight days.

Recent Resignations – Anand Sharma and Ghulam Nabi Azad

On Sunday, senior party leader Anand Sharma quit as the chairperson of the party's Steering Committee for Himachal Pradesh.

Sharma had said, while announcing his resignation, that he was a "lifelong Congressman" and that the Congress' ideology ran in his blood, but added that "given the continuing exclusion and insults, as a self-respecting person, I was left with no choice."

A day after his resignation, the All India Congress Committee (AICC) incharge of the state, Rajeev Shukla, had reached out to him to resolve the matter ahead of the Himachal Pradesh Assembly elections slated for November this year.

On 16 August, veteran Congress leader Ghulam Nabi Azad had stepped down from the campaign committee as well as the Jammu and Kashmir political affairs committee.

Both Sharma and Azad were among the 23 leaders who had written to Sonia Gandhi in August 2020, demanding an election to the post of the party president as well as the Congress Working Committee (CWC). The group of dissident leaders within the party had come to be known as 'G-23'.