Senior Congress leader Jayanthi Natarajan Friday said she was quitting the party and attacked Congress vice president Rahul Gandhi, saying she had acted on “specific inputs” from his office during her tenure as the environment minister.
“I announce my resignation (from the party),” Natarajan told reporters here. “I feel that the time has come now for me to rethink my association because what happened in the recent past. The Congress is no longer the Congress that I joined,” said Natarajan who was with the party for over 30 years.
She quit the Congress after writing a letter to Congress party president Sonia Gandhi.
She said that as the union environment minister she followed the party line with regard to protection of environment and also “requests” from Congress vice president Rahul Gandhi’s office.
The Tamil Nadu unit of the Congress was taken by surprise. “It is for the party high command to decide on the future course of action,” a senior state party leader said on condition of anonymity.
Natarajan, who was asked to put in her papers Dec 20, 2013, by then prime minister Manmohan Singh, said: “Received several requests and representations from Rahul Gandhi’s office to ensure that the environment is protected.”
“And according to these instructions…I did my duty. I had these projects investigated and some of them I stopped,” she said and added that she got “specific inputs” from Rahul Gandhi’s office.
Natarajan said on becoming the environment minister, party president Sonia Gandhi had told her to maintain the Congress tradition of protecting the environment as was done by former prime ministers Indira Gandhi and Rajiv Gandhi.
Despite withstanding the “anger and wrath of all the colleagues who protested that economic progress was being blocked”, Natarajan said she was rewarded for her diligence with orders to resign from the cabinet.
A visibly miffed Natarajan said: “After the Congress, I intend to think about my life and future.”
“I have absolutely no plan to join any party,” she said and added that no BJP leader has met her in this connection.
She welcomed a government probe into environmental clearances given by her and demanded that the probe should be transparent.
“I have to set the record straight to uphold the legacy of my family and my reputation. It has been a bitter experience for me for the past one-and-half years. My own party treated me badly,” she said.
She said many senior members of her family were jailed for participating in the freedom struggle.
Natarajan said that she has sufficient proof of Rahul Gandhi’s specific requests on environmental clearance related to projects. “Let Rahul Gandhi refute it.”
She said she hails from a Congress family and has been “faithful, loyal and utterly loyal to the Gandhi family”.
“Even my mother was seriously ill, I shuttled between Chennai and Delhi as I was the spokesperson of the party,” said Natarajan, a four-time member of the Rajya Sabha.
“I would have plunged even into a well if my party had wanted me to do that,” she said.
“Why for a year everyone ruined my reputation and tarnished the legacy of my family,” she asked. “I only followed the rules. Did not break the rules.”
Charging the Congress of letting her down by allowing her name and her family’s name to be tarnished, Natarajan refuted that she had let down the party by not contesting in the recent Lok Sabha polls.
“I was not in a condition to contest the Lok Sabha polls when my name, reputation and my family’s legacy was being tarred,” Natarajan said.
Many senior Congress leaders from Tamil Nadu, including former finance minister P. Chidambaram, did not contest in the Lok Sabha polls. The Congress party drew a blank in all the 39 seats.
Jayanthi Natarajan’s claim that Rahul Gandhi put pressure on her to reject the green clearance to Vedanta’s mining project in Odisha sparked a political debate in Orissa.
While the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and Biju Janata Dal (BJD) lashed out at the Gandhi family for influencing the government’s decision, the Congress tried to defend itself stating the intervention was meant to protect interest of ‘Dangaria Kondh’ tribes in Niyamgiri hills of Kalahandi district.
“The statement of Natarajan exposed the conspiracy of UPA to destroy the economy of Odisha. Vedanta came here to set up an industry and create jobs in Odisha. But, the cancellation of the forest clearance was a big jolt to the company and it almost came to closure,” said BJD spokesperson Rabinarayan Nanda.
Senior BJP leader Suresh Pujari said it was well known that the first family of the Congress party was intervening in the government. “We all know that Rahul and Sonia Gandhi were using extra-constitutional authorities in the government and used to influence the government decisions. The statement of Natarajan only vindicated it,” said Pujari.
However, the Congress leaders became defensive and admitted that there could have been pressure from Rahul to deny permission to Vedanta to mine bauxite in the Niyamgiri hills.
“Rahulji had already taken a stand to protect interests of tribals under any circumstance. So, I think Rahulji might have spoken to her about the Niyamgiri issue. I see nothing wrong in it,” said former Congress MP Pradeep Majhi.
Majhi said the Congress vice-president had visited the hills here and assured the tribals he would defend their rights in Delhi.
“The Supreme Court also asked the tribal affairs ministry to hold gram sabhas (village meetings) in Niyamgiri area to take views of the local residents. The tribals also rejected the mining proposal of Vedanta to mine on the hills,” added Majhi.
The ministry had declined to give Vedanta the stage-2 forest clearance to extract bauxite from Niyamgiri hills Aug 24, 2010. Rahul Gandhi, who claimed to be a ‘sipahi’ (soldier) of the tribals, visited the site at Niyamgiri
The Congress refuted Natarajan’s charge against Rahul Gandhi that he “interfered” in her work and said her allegations seemed “inspired”.
Addressing a press conference here, Congress spokesperson Abhishek Singhvi said Natarajan’s “special remarks” against Rahul Gandhi appear to be “inspired” by the BJP.
Singhvi said there was no logic in Natarajan’s charges. He said if she says that she acted according to directives either from the Congress or Gandhi, then why and what is she complaining about?
“You as a Congress minister have to fulfill the party manifesto and to work towards achieving what has been mentioned in it. Where is the contradiction,” he said.
There was always a “party line”, so what is she complaining for, Singhvi said. Singhvi also accused Natarajan of running an “image bachao andolan” (image saving movement) and that her actions were inspired by the BJP, who according to him were on “slippery ground” in the run-up to the assembly election in Delhi.
“It is unfortunate that a person, who spent four terms in parliament and held key positions without contesting elections made allegations that are opportunistic in nature apart from being untrue,” he said.
On being asked why Natarajan was sacked as union environment minister three months before the 2014 Lok Sabha polls, Singhvi said there were “political reasons” and “her departure was considered and discussed by the UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi and the then prime minister Manmohan Singh”.
A fourth generation Congress worker, Jayanthi Natarajan had long served the party as its national spokesperson.
Seen as part of Congress president Sonia Gandhi’s coterie, she was privy to several key decisions made by the party top brass before being put out in the public domain.
Grand-daughter of former Tamil Nadu chief minister M. Bakthavatsalam, Natarajan hails from a family of Congress veterans who were associated with the Indian National Congress since its inception in 1885.
Her great-grandfather was a member of India’s Constituent Assembly.
Born in 1954, Natarajan did her schooling from Sacred Heart Matriculation Higher Secondary School in Chennai and studied law to pursue a career.
A Chennai-based lawyer, Natarajan entered politics as a Youth Congress worker in the 1980s. She was later noticed by the then Congress president Rajiv Gandhi, who placed her in the Rajya Sabha for the first time in 1986.
In a career that spans over 30 years, she has thrice been re-elected to the upper house of the parliament in 1992, 1997 and 2008.
In a brief spell away from the Congress, Natrajan joined the Tamil Maanila Congress floated by late Congress veteran G.K. Moopanar in 1996 over differences with then Prime Minister P.V. Narasimha Rao.
She resigned from the Rajya Sabha and was re-elected in 1997 as a Tamil Maanila Congress member.
After the Tamil Maanila Congress allied with the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam in Tamil Nadu and joined the United Front Government at the centre, Natarajan served in the then I.K. Gujral cabinet in 1997 as minister of state for coal, civil aviation and parliamentary affairs.
Subsequent to the Tamil Maanila Congress’ merger with the Congress following Moopanar’s death in 2002, Natarajan was appointed the party’s national spokesperson.
She succeeded Jairam Ramesh and served in the UPA II as minister of state for environment and forests (independent charge) for four months before she put in her papers in December 2013.
Natarajan later alleged that she was asked by party president Sonia Gandhi to resign from her post and work for the organisation to focus on party work in the run up to the 2014 general election. (IANS)
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