Congress General Secretary and Gujarat unit in-charge Gurudas Kamat resigned from the party on Monday.
I met Congress President (Sonia Gandhi) about 10 days ago and expressed a desire to resign. For several months now, I have felt I need to take a backseat to enable others to get the opportunity.Gurudas Kamat
Claiming his resignation is purely on “personal grounds”, and that he isn’t quitting social work, he added:
Retiring from politics does not mean retiring from social work. I will continue to be available for people minus the party tag for whatever help or issues to be taken up with different agencies from this weekend.
Kamat said besides meeting Gandhi, he has written to Vice President Rahul Gandhi expressing his desire to quit.
“Since there was no reply, I have formally informed that I would like to retire from politics,” said Kamat, who lost the Lok Sabha elections in 2014 to BJP’s Kirit Somaiya.
The former Union Minister had set off speculations regarding his resignation in April after he skipped Congress Vice President Rahul Gandhi’s event in Mumbai.
The Congress party’s high command is yet to accept his resignation and efforts would be made to persuade him to withdraw it, according to sources.
There were differences reported between Kamat and Mumbai Regional Congress Committee chief Sanjay Nirupam leading to factional infighting within the party’s cut unit.
Kamat’s resignation came on a day another senior Congress leader Ajit Jogi, who is a former Chhattisgarh chief minister, announced that he was forming his own party.
Kamat represented Mumbai North East constituency of Maharashtra in the Lok Sabha five times (1984, 1991, 1998, 2004, and 2009) and lost the 2014 general elections.
The Congress has seen some of its senior leaders quitting the party over the past year, following a series of electoral setbacks after its debacle in the 2014 Lok Sabha elections.
(At The Quint, we question everything. Play an active role in shaping our journalism by becoming a member today.)