Amarinder Singh resigned from the Congress today (File)

New Delhi:

Former Punjab Chief Minister Amarinder Singh handed in his resignation to the Congress today, levelling a series of questions and accusations against the party and its individual leaders — including party chief Sonia Gandhi, her son and daughter. Uploading the seven-page letter on Twitter, the 78-year-old announced that his new party will be called the “Punjab Lok Congress”.

In the letter, the former Chief Minister associated with the Congress for decades — said Rahul Gandhi and Priyanka Gandhi Vadra — instead of reining in Navjot Sidhu, “an unstable individual” and “an acolyte of the Pakistani deep state” patronized him.

He also said Mrs Gandhi had “turned a blind eye” to the “shenanigans of this gentleman who was aided and abetted by the General Secretary In-charge Harish Rawat, perhaps the most dubious individual I had the occasion to make acquaintance off (sic)”.

Citing the legislature Party meeting called on Twitter, he said he understood the  “intention was to belittle and humiliate” him. The next morning, Mrs Gandhi called him and asked for his resignation from the top post, he wrote.  

“You probably thought that if this third world emergency imposition kind of circus that happened in June 1975 was not enacted, I would have whisked the MLAs to some resort… Despite knowing me for the better part of my 52 years in Public life and that too at a deeply personal level you never understood me or my character. You thought I was getting on in years and should be put to pasture,” his letter read.

Invoking Rajiv Gandhi, he wrote that he has felt “deeply hurt by your conduct and that of your children who l still deeply love as much as my own children, having known their father, since we were in school together since 1954, which is for 67 years now. Having been put through this exercise, during past few months, I do hope that no other senior Congressperson is subjected to the ignominy that I was put through”.