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Jayanthi Natarajan: Rahul Gandhi made 'specific requests' over environmental concerns

Former environment minister Jayanthi Natarajan revolted against Congress Vice President Rahul Gandhi and resigned from the Congress on Friday saying there was no democracy in it, underlining the power structure and adding to the woes of the party.

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Former union minister Jayanthi Natarajan addressing a press conference in Chennai on Friday
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Former environment minister Jayanthi Natarajan revolted against Congress Vice President Rahul Gandhi and resigned from the Congress on Friday saying there was no democracy in it, underlining the power structure and adding to the woes of the party.

At a press conference in Chennai after the leakage of her letter to Congress President Sonia Gandhi, Natarajan accused Rahul Gandhi of instructing her to delay projects without any explanation and then complaining that there were bottlenecks in the environment ministry. In other words, that she was made the scapegoat for the delays in giving enviromental clearance to projects.

According to Natarajan, the Congress leadership had sent "specific input" on certain industrial projects being evaluated by the environment ministry and that she was the one who was "vilified, humiliated and sidelined" by it.

As per her accusations, the projects that she stopped on party's instructions involved Vedanta, Nayamgiri, Nirma, and Adani groups.

"I received specific requests from Shri Rahul Gandhi and his office forwarding environmental concerns in some important areas and I took care to honour those requests," Natarajan says in her letter.

As against 1474 projects receiving clearances in 2009 and 2010, their number dropped to 839 in the two years she was at the helm of affairs in the environment and forest ministry.

Her remarks raised questions whether she had plans of joining the BJP. However, the BJP denied reports that she had met party chief Amit Shah last year.

Natarajan said she was asked to quit without reason and "persons from the office of Shri Rahul Gandhi were calling the media and planting stories that my resignation was not for party work."

While Natarajan's letter gave the BJP ammunition to take on the Opposition party, the Congress leaders closed ranks to protect Rahul Gandhi Gandhi, dismissing her allegations as "completely baseless."

"For any government which administers the country, the prime responsibility remains to administer the economy of the country.... Permissions were decided by whims of the party leaders over legal requirements. This is crony capitalism," finance minister Arun Jaitley said.

Natarajan is the second senior Congress leader in Tamil Nadu to quit the party after its former state president G K Vasan, who has floated his own party. The Tamil Nadu unit of Congress is already facing internal bickerings, the latest incident being the act of defiance by Karti Chidambaram, son of former union minister P Chidambaram. Karti refused to reply to a show cause notice issued to him by the state unit for his alleged anti-party remarks.

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