Congress neta Pradeep Chhabra quits outfit; accuses party of treating him like a 'puppet'

Congress leader Pardeep Chhabra, who has been in disagreement with the party's city unit president and other leaders of his camp, resigned from the party's primary membership on Friday.

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

Taking to his official Twitter handle, Chhabra wrote that an upright man can never tolerate indignation and lies. Chhabra had been positioned as the Congress’ city unit president till February this year and was replaced by Subhash Chawla.

Chabbra - Chawla spat evident

Notably, during the past few weeks, Chhabra had been hitting out at Subhash 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 Chandigarh Congress unit, Chhabra had expressed his inability to attend it citing personal reasons.

Leader rues being treated as a 'puppet'

In his resignation letter addressed to Congress president Sonia Gandhi, Chhabra stated that he was quitting all posts and primary membership of the party. The leader also attacked former Union minister, 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 the Indian National Congress. I had served for the people of Chandigarh as a councillor for 15 years, senior Deputy Mayor of Chandigarh and Mayor of Chandigarh,” he wrote in his letter.

Chabbra rued that he never asked and sought rewards or returns for himself in the hope that the party will respect his contributions.

'Neither valued nor given respect'

Lamenting his place in the camp, the leader said, "In the last few years certain things have convinced me that neither my services are valued nor I was getting the respect that every individual deserves."

Adding that he was feeling suffocated, Chabbra said, “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. Notably, in an open letter to the city's party activists 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.