Jayantthi Natarajan quits Cognress; mounts scathing attack on Rahul Gandhi

30 Jan,Chennai

Former Environment Minister Jayanathi Natarajan today quit the Congress party and mounted a scathing attack on Rahul Gandhi. She claimed that she followed his directions on green nod to projects but was humiliated and sidelined by central leadership.

Addressing the media in Chennai, the longtime Congress loyalist said she is ready to face probe into environmental clearance given by her during her stint as minister in the UPA government and has no plans to join any other political party after such bitter experiences. She said she had only followed the party line and rule book on all environment issues.

She accused Rahul Gandhi’s office of planting stories to sully her reputation after she had resigned as Environment Minister on the direction of Sonia Gandhi. Suggesting that the Congress Vice-President had interfered in the decision making process, she said specific inputs were received from the office of Rahul Gandhi based on the representation by NGOs raising environment concerns on certain large projects. She said she had done done no wrong and ready to go to jail if any concrete proof of my wrongdoing is established.

She also said that as a minister in UPA-II, she did not want to attack Narendra Modi on snoopgate issue but was told that the party at the highest level wanted her to do so. She said she had issues only with the party high command not with the Tamil Nadu unit. Natarajan said she has also quit as the trustee of the Tamil Nadu unit Congress.