Making a scathing attack on Congress president Sonia Gandhi for the way she handled the issue of her foreign origin raised by the expelled rebels, Dwivedi in his six-page letter of resignation to Gandhi said, "Unfortunately, you, madam president and the BJP have made it (issue of foreign origin) an emotional issue."

Releasing the copies of the letter at a press conference, Dwivedi told Gandhi that her entire approach to "people, politics and power was flawed - marked by superficiality, short-termism, tentativeness and casualness, an outsider's approach and an unfamiliarity with the Congress traditions and its ethos".

"All this led to a serious crisis of relationship between you and the party and its leaders," he said adding this has resulted in failure of theleadership on every front in the last few weeks.

"Simultaneously, we have witnessed increasing diminution of the democratic element in the party's inner working, the concentration of power in one hand, the deliberate and subtle marginalisation of leaders with experience, foresight and standing in the public, the increasingly important role played by the `defenders of the faith'," he said.

Asserting that the decision taken by him was his own and not prompted by Narasimha Rao, Dwivedi said the expulsion of Pawar, P A Sangma and Tariq Anwar, the behaviour meted out to them in abstention and the post-expulsion conduct of the party raises basic questions which the party can ignore only at its peril.

"What has escaped the attention of many is that the great turmoil created in the party was not due to the position taken by the three leaders on a matter of public importance but your extraordinary and mind-boggling reaction to what they said and the subsequent conduct of the party," he said.

Dwivedi toldGandhi that her resignation and subsequent stance and finally the speech at the AICC betray a "total failure" on her part to understand the mechanics of the party system as also the meaning of inner party democracy and the concept of democratic loyalty.

Maintaining that the raising of the issue by the three CWC members was "neither a case of defiance nor indiscipline", he said the action against them has turned the clock of Congress history backwards and has by one stroke changed the party "beyond recognition".

Stating that the central point in the entire controversy relates to and revolved around the office of the Prime Minister, he said the post is the "most difficult assignment in the world" and a person who is not born in India would have to face "built-in psychological, practical and many other kinds of problems".