'Loyalty to Gandhi-Nehru family paid'

Senior Congress leader and former Madhya Pradesh minister, Aziz Qureshi, who has been appointed as the governor of Uttarakhand, on Sunday said it was due to the "blessings" of the Congress president, Sonia Gandhi.

The former minister said he had "always been loyal to the Gandhi-Nehru family", and his appointment showed that loyalty was rewarded.

"It is only because of the blessings from Sonia Gandhi that I have become Governor of Uttarakhand," he said in Bhopal.

Qureshi said that he joined Congress in 1951, and worked for the party at every level.

"I belong to the generation which thought that being made a Governor was an insult, it meant being shifted away from the active politics," he said.

However, he said, the things had changed and becoming a Governor was an honour.

Qureshi also said that former Madhya Pradesh chief minister, the late Arjun Singh, had a higher stature in Congress than him, yet Singh was junior to him in the party.