A day after he was removed from the post of Bihar Pradesh Committee (BPCC) president, Ashok Choudhury, on Wednesday broke down before media persons and said he wanted an “honourable exit and did not deserve to be insulted.”
“Though I welcome the party decision but I don’t deserve the way I was insulted by being removed from the party post… I wanted an honourable exit… I’ll certainly go and meet our party top leadership to explain my position”, Mr Choudhury told media persons.
“I was willing to resign and I never wanted to embarrass our party high command... I'm an honourable congressmen and deserve an honourable exit”, he said further. “I did not want to leave the party but now I don’t have any choice.”
Earlier on Tuesday night the Congress party had removed Mr Choudhury from the post of Bihar party unit chief and appointed state party vice president Kaukab Quadri as the working president.
Mr Choudhury (49), who was State education minister in the previous grand alliance government, was in thick of controversy for quite some time allegedly being charged for pushing a split in the state unit of the party ever since JD(U) had joined hands with BJP to form an NDA government in Bihar.
Mr Choudhury’s tenure of four years as State party chief had also been completed. It was under his tenure the party had won 27 seats out of total 40 seats allocated under the grand alliance in 2015 Assembly elections.
“Our party vice president Rahul Gandhi goes to a Dalit’s home and visits Dalit villages but here in Bihar, a Dalit party president and leader was humiliated and insulted by him on the advice of a some party general secretaries... I’ll meet Mr Gandhi and apprise him all about this”, he said while addressing media persons in Patna.
Mr Choudhury targeted party general secretary and in-charge of Bihar affairs, C.P. Joshi for “misleading” Mr. Gandhi. However, earlier, he had not gone to Delhi on being summoned by Mr Gandhi for a meeting to discuss the crisis in Bihar after the collapse of the Grand Alliance.
In August when RJD chief Lalu Prasad had called a BJP bhagao, Desh bachao rally in Patna, Mr Choudhury had requested party president Sonia Gandhi and VP Rahul Gandhi to skip the rally as sharing stage with tainted Mr Prasad would give signal of “compromising with corruption.”
Mr Gandhi had sent party leaders C.P. Joshi and Ghulam Nabi Azad as representatives to attend the event.
Meanwhile, the political buzz in the State is that Mr Choudhury in all likelihood would join hands with JD(U) by resigning from the party or make a split in the State unit. He, said party sources, has already drummed support of at least 14 party MLAs while, 18 are required for making a split out of total 27 MLAs.
Most of the Congress MLAs supporting Mr Choudhury have been elected from urban Assembly constituencies and they are afraid of going to upcoming poll along with “tainted RJD.”
