Hours after the Vice-President Jagdeep Dhankhar announced his resignation citing health concerns, the Congress said Tuesday morning that it is “also a fact that there are far deeper reasons for his resignation”.
Congress Rajya Sabha member and Communication in charge Jairam Ramesh said Dhankhar’s resignation “speaks highly of him”. “It also speaks poorly of those who had got him elected as Vice President in the first instance,” said Ramesh in a post on X.
Ramesh said at 12.30 pm Monday, Dhankhar chaired the Business Advisory Committee (BAC) of the Rajya Sabha. “It was attended by most members, including the Leader of the House, JP Nadda, and the Parliamentary Affairs Minister, Kiren Rijiju. After a brief discussion, it was decided that the committee’s next meeting would be held again at 4:30 pm,” said Ramesh.
The Congress leader said the committee members gathered again for the meeting under Dhankhar’s chairmanship at 4.30 pm, and waited for Nadda and Rijiju, but they did not show up”.
“They never came. Shri Jagdeep Dhankar was not personally informed that the two senior Ministers were not attending. Rightly he took umbrage and rescheduled the BAC for today at 1 PM. So something very serious happened yesterday between 1 PM and 4:30 PM to account for the deliberate absence of Shri Nadda and Shri Rijiju from the second BAC yesterday,” he wrote in the post.
Ramesh said that “in a truly unprecedented move, Shri Jagdeep Dhankar has resigned”. “He has given health reasons for doing so. Those should be respected. But it is also a fact that there are far deeper reasons for his resignation,” said the Congress MP.
“While always lauding post-2014 India, he spoke fearlessly for the welfare of farmers, forcefully against what he called ‘ahankar’ in public life, and strongly on judicial accountability and restraint. To the extent possible under the current G2 ruling regime, he tried to accommodate the Opposition. He was a stickler for norms, proprieties, and protocol, which he believed were being consistently disregarded in both his capacities”.
