Senior Congress leader and former
Environment Minister in the Manmohan Singh led UPA government Jayanthi
Natarajan has resigned from the membership of the Congress party. Sources say
that she will announce her decision through a press conference today. She will
also make 'evidences' of Rahul Gandhi's interference in the day-to-day
functioning of the UPA government.
In a somewhat vitriolic letter -
published in a national English Daily today - to the Congress President Sonia
Gandhi, she has accused the vice-president of the Party Rahul Gandhi of interfering
in her work as Environment Minister.
Natarajan, who was removed from
her post for delaying the clearance of big projects associated with her ministry,
has written in her letter, "During my tenure as Minister, it was the clear
and specific policy of the party, to take all steps to protect the
environment...and keep a balance between environment and industry. As
Chairperson NAC, you have written several letters to me regarding projects in
the Environment Ministry, and protection of tribal rights, and I have always
kept you briefed that due care was being taken by me to protect the
environment. I received specific requests [which used to be directives for us]
from Shri Rahul Gandhi and his office forwarding environmental concerns in some
important areas and I took care to honor those requests."
She has alleged that some 'chosen
individuals in the party' conducted a motivated campaign against her. She is of
the opinion that her being asked to resign from her post in December 2013 had a
direct connection with a speech that Rahul Gandhi delivered at a FICCI meet the
very next day, where he said, "the corporate world that they need no
longer worry about environmental clearance delays and that bottlenecks would be
removed."
She has mournfully written that
after she was asked to resign, she tried to meet Rahul Gandhi, but he expressed
his inability to meet her as he was busy at that time; he promised to meet her
soon but even after waiting for a year, the meeting was never held.
She also claims that she was
forced by the party high-command to keep throwing verbal-volleys at Narendra
Modi in what is known as the Snoopgate controversy, even though her aversion to
personal criticism was well known.
Her letter explains that she was
asked by PM Manmohan Singh to give up her ministerial post as the party need
her services in the light of the General elections that are approaching in six
months times. She resigned, but no such organizational work was assigned to
her; to add insult to injury, she was soon removed from the party spokesperson's
post.
Jayanthi Natarajan joined the
Congress party in the 80s and had a nice rapport with Rajiv Gandhi. She has
been elected for the Rajya Sabha three times on a Congress ticket from Tamil
Nadu. In the 90s, she along with other congress leaders who were unhappy with
Narasimha Rao broke away from the Congress and formed Tamil Maanila Congress
(TMC) under G K Moopanar. The TMC, however, merged with the Congress after
Moopanar death.
Natarajan replaced Jairam Ramesh
as the Environment Minister in 2011.
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