Having quit the Congress in October 2019 and spending time out in the cold, former Haryana PCC chief Ashok Tanwar on Thursday launched a socio-political platform titled 'Apna Bharat Morcha' with the professed aim of giving voice to the issues of the youth, farmers, workers, middle class and women.
Tanwar had quit the Congress just ahead of the assembly elections in Haryana in 2019 after he was removed from the post of PCC chief. A former Lok Sabha MP and Youth Congress president, Tanwar was identified as a member of Team Rahul and was amongst the many young leaders who were finding the going tough in the party since Rahul Gandhi's decision to quit as party chief after the Lok Sabha debacle of 2019. He had been engaged in a long-running feud with Haryana strongman Bhupinder Singh Hooda, and just ahead of state polls, the party high command had replaced him with Kumari Selja in a bid to appease Hooda.
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The former Congress leader, while making a presentation on the new front, referred to the circumstances in which he left the party. “We left our parent party due to certain circumstances, which compelled us to take the decision to part ways,” Tanwar said.
In a dig at the Congress, Tanwar began his presentation with a cartoon by R.K. Laxman dating back to 1978 in which the party is depicted as having been reduced to such a miniscule size that one needs a microscope to see it.
He said that while the Congress is a pale shadow of what it used to be, the BJP is “insensitive” to the issues that matter to the people. “Farmers have been on a dharna at the borders of Delhi for the last 90 days. The bills passed in the last seven years are not in favour of our farmers, workers and the youth. Anybody who dissents is put in jail,” he said.
“The opposition is mute and the government is deaf. In such a scenario, Apna Bharat Morcha will work with a three-pillared approach of dialogue, debate and discussion to add not only verve to Indian ethos of unity in diversity but will also lay the foundation for truly making our country the land of hope and fulfillment,” Tanwar said.
