Congress leaders busy fighting Twitter wars

New Delhi, Aug 2 (IANS) Internal discord in the Congress is out in the open since Friday as some former Union ministers have launched an offensive on Twitter against members of Team Rahul.

On Friday, party leader Manish Tewari started the attack and it continued on Saturday but on Sunday he trained his guns on the BJP.

After Tewari came out on Twitter to defend 10 years of the UPA under then Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, he found support from fellow UPA ministers – Anand Sharma, Shashi Tharoor and Milind Deora who hit out at the “ill informed” team of Rahul Gandhi and asked them to introspect on the 2019 poll defeat.

The war within the party erupted when the younger leaders questioned the seniors and demanded introspection on consecutive poll defeats on 2014 and 2019 and blamed UPA rule, sources said.

The man in the firing line is Rajeev Satav, the newly-elected Rajya Sabha member who is in-charge of Gujarat Congress and is a former Youth Congress President close to Rahul Gandhi, who raised the issue of decimation of the party and blamed UPA rule.

But Satav also hit back and called it “malicious” as he slammed the senior leaders for dragging the name of Manmohan Singh, and he was supported by Manickam Tagore and Sushmita Dev.

Satav tweeted “Dr Singh has made commendable contributions to building modern India. He will always be held in high regard. I will discuss my comments, or those made by any other esteemed colleagues, on internal party forums only.”

He was supported by Manickam Tagore who tweeted “Absolutely agree with Rajeev Satav. There is merit in keeping party discussions within the party. This is the time to combine our efforts to fight and defeat Modi/Shah and RSS.”

Sushmita Dev also supported his sentiments as Satav said “The malicious attempt to draw Dr Manmohan Singh into this exchange is reprehensible. To say my observations cast a shadow over Dr Singh’s leadership of UPA II is a lie, a total misrepresentation of facts. I hold Dr Singh in high esteem. He is above reproach. “

–IANS

miz/kr