Thiruvananthapuram: Popular leader and the Youth Congress state vice president for Kerala, C.R. Mahesh who had unleashed a lethal criticism against the party’s national leadership, called it quits from the party and politics on Wednesday.

His quick decision to call a press conference in Kollam and announced his resignation came even as the Congress national leadership was considering action against him.

“I have decided to quit politics. I plan to do some work for a living”, Mahesh told media persons.

He said he would continue to do public service. “There is someone who needs your help to get blood for a patient; there’s someone who needs your help to be a bystander in a hospital. All of such public service I will continue to do”, he said.

On Tuesday, Mahesh had severely criticised the national leadership of the Congress party, even likening it to the Roman emperor who fiddled while Rome burnt.

He singled out Congress vice president Rahul Gandhi and veteran leader A.K. Antony for special treatment in his social media post against the party’s top leadership. Mahesh asked Rahul Gandhi to leave if he was “not willing to take up the leadership of the party”, and said Antony was like a “mauni baba” (a seer who has taken a vow of silence).

He also asked Antony whether he was ignorant of the present plight of the Kerala Students Union that Antony had nurtured many decades ago.

Mahesh was also critical of the party for not being able to find a new Kerala Pradesh Congress Committee president after the resignation of V.M. Sudheeran.

The Youth Congress vice president’s decision to quit the party earned him some kudos on social media, but some also criticised his comment about planning “to do some work for a living”.

Commenting on social media, one person wondered whether an Indian politician would know any other job to earn a living, while another commented that Mahesh had unwittingly admitted that he had taken politics as a means of earning money rather than serving the community.

Yet another commented that politicians who considered politics as a means of livelihood were the bane of the country.