Bhubaneswar, May 30: Former Odisha chief minister Giridhar Gamang, whose one vote had toppled the 13-day-old A.B. Vajpayee-led NDA government in 1999, today severed his 43-year-old association with the Congress after accusing the party's leadership of "humiliating him".
He faxed his resignation from the party's primary membership to Congress president Sonia Gandhi.
He blamed the central leadership for not helping him to remove the stigma that his single vote had brought down the Vajpayee government.
On April 17, 1999, when then Congress MP from Koraput Gamang, who had become the chief minister barely two months before, turned up to participate in the trust vote against the Vajpayee government, the lower house had reverberated with the chorus from the ruling NDA benches Go-Man-Go (Go away Gamang).
He had become the chief minister of Odisha on February 18, the same year and technically had the right to cast his vote in the trust motion as he had not resigned from the Lok Sabha.
But the NDA members and constitutional experts had questioned the moral and ethical rights of a chief minister to participate in the proceedings of the Lok Sabha after assuming the reins of a state.
Gamang's vote had sealed the fate of the NDA government. It lost by 269 to 270 votes.
In his letter to Gandhi, Gamang said: "Since 1999, I have been humiliated in public for bringing down the Vajpayee government with a single vote of mine. Till today, neither my party nor my leaders have come out with the truth and protected me from public criticism. I feel that loyalty to the party has turned into a liability to the party," he said while adding, "I had attended the Lok Sabha and voted as directed by the party under the anti-defection law."
The nine-term MP, Gamang had served three Congress Prime Ministers - Indira Gandhi, Rajiv Gandhi and P.V. Narasimha Rao - as minister. He was also the chief minister of the state for nine months and had held several party positions.
But Gamang is not ready to bid good-bye to his political career. In response to a question, he said: "Now that I have resigned from the Congress, if any party feels that I will be an asset for them and not a liability, I will consider. My options are open," he said.
That the veteran tribal leader is inching towards the BJP became evident when he said: "It was not my vote that turned the tables on the Vajpayee government, but the cross-voting of Saifuddin Soz (then a National Conference member and now in the Congress)."
Reacting to Gamang's decision, BJP leader and Union tribal affairs minister Jual Oram said: "Tribal leaders do not enjoy any respect in the Congress. If Gamang wants to join the BJP, the central leadership will certainly take a call on the issue."
BJP spokesperson Suresh Pujari said: "It has opened the floodgate of the Congress party."
Gamang's move, however, took Congress leaders by surprise.
Odisha Pradesh Congress Committee president Prasad Harichandan said: "He (Gamang) has been rewarded several times in the party and has probably taken the decision under pressure. In the coming days, we will know the reasons. I wonder why has he raked up an issue that has even been settled by the judiciary after 16 years."
BJD spokesperson Pratap Keshari Deb said: "It's his personal affair. The Congress will suffer a lot because of his resignation."
BJD sources said that it was unlikely that Gamang would join the ruling party.
His wife Hema Gamang, who had represented the Koraput Lok Sabha seat between 1999-2004 and Gunupur Assembly seat in 2004-2009 as the Congress nominee, is now in the BJD.
In 2014, as a BJD nominee she had unsuccessfully contested from one of the Assembly segments of the Koraput Lok Sabha seat in which her husband was the Congress candidate.
At the time of joining the BJD, she had expressed the desire to contest against her husband in the Lok Sabha.
