'Jyotiraditya Scindia wanted to meet Rahul Gandhi, wasn't given an appointment'

Rebel Congress leader Jyotiraditya Scindia’s cousin and erstwhile Tripura royal, Pradyot Manikya Debbarman, has claimed that the miffed leader had tried to meet Rahul Gandhi for months before he quit the party.

The former Madhya Pradesh MP, who was known to be an all-weather ally of Rahul, had allegedly tried arranging a meeting with him for months but wasn’t given an appointment.

Commenting on the 49-year-old Gwalior royal’s dramatic exit from the Congress party earlier this week, Debbarma said on March 10: “I know for a fact that Jyotiraditya Scindia was trying to meet Rahul Gandhi for months; no appointment was given. If he (Rahul Gandhi) did not want to hear us, why did he even bring us to the party?"

Notably, Debbarman was the Tripura Congress chief before he too decided to quit the party a few months ago. He had also taken to social media following Scindia’s exit from Congress and written that his cousin had “waited and waited but there were no upcoming appointments given to him by their leader”.

His Facebook post further stated that when he resigned as the Tripura Congress president, he had warned that the young members of the party have been feeling ‘orphaned’ ever since Rahul had stepped down as AICC leader. Debbarman claimed the views of the young guns were sidelined by ‘stalwarts’ who had begun disregarding their outlook on key policy issues.

NDTV reports that the former Tripura royal has also stated that the “old guard” of the party views any debate as “an act of dissension”.