Discussion Held To Fight Forthcoming Assembly Polls Unitedly: Ghulam Nabi Azad After Meeting Sonia Gandhi

A day after the G-23 meeting, where dissenters pitched for an “inclusive and collective leadership" in the Congress, Bhupinder Singh Hooda, one of its members, met Rahul Gandhi on Thursday, and learnt to have discussed a revamp of the party organisation.

New Delhi: In an effort to put its house in order following Congress’ abysmal performance in the recently held Assembly polls in five states, senior party leader Ghulam Nabi Azad met interim party president Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi on Friday. Earlier, sources said Azad, along with some of his other G-32 group colleagues, will meet both Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi today to discuss the party’s underwhelming performance in assembly elections in Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Goa Manipur and Punjab.

Following the meeting, Azad told reporters that Congress Working Committee (CWC)  was asked for suggestions on the reasons for defeat in 5 states, and today’s discussion was focused on forthcoming Assembly elections.

“The discussion was held to fight unitedly in the forthcoming Assembly elections to defeat the opposition parties,” said Azad after meeting party president Sonia Gandhi.
“The meeting with Sonia Gandhi was good. All members of the Congress party decided unanimously that she should continue as the president, we just had some suggestions that were shared,” he added.

Today’s meeting followed the G-23 leaders meeting on Wednesday, which was called to discuss Congress’ debacle in the recently concluded Assembly elections in five states. Party leaders Kapil Sibal, Bhupinder Singh Hooda, Anand Sharma, Manish Tewari, Shashi Tharoor, Mani Shankar Aiyar, PJ Kurien, Preneet Kaur, Sandeep Dikshit and Raj Babbar were among those present.

Rahul Gandhi’s meeting with Bhupinder Singh Hooda

A day after the G-23 meeting, where dissenters pitched for an “inclusive and collective leadership” in the Congress, Bhupinder Singh Hooda, one of its members, met Rahul Gandhi on Thursday and learnt to have discussed a revamp of the party organisation.

The meeting is being seen as an attempt by the Gandhi family to reach out to the rebel group, which is aggressively demanding organisational changes after Congress’s abject loss in the assembly elections in five states.

According to sources, Hooda, in his meeting with Rahul Gandhi suggested elections of the Congress Working Committee and taking future decisions through discussions only in CWC as this was also mentioned by the G-23 group.

The former Haryana chief minister, in the meeting with Rahul Gandhi, also sought the appointment of an experienced person, who understands the politics of North India and is well versed with Hindi, after removing party General Secretary KC Venugopal from his post, sources informed.

Hooda also sought clarity over who is making the decisions in the party and said that leaders get to know about big decisions of the party from the newspapers, highlighting the need to make decisions collectively.

Hooda said that the G-23 leaders have not done any “anti-party activities” adding that the meeting of faction was held after informing Sonia Gandhi. “We do not agree with everything (Shankersinh) Vaghela and (Kapil) Sibal have said,” Hooda said after both of them had questioned the leadership of Rahul Gandhi.

After the Congress’ rout in five assembly polls, Sibal had given an interview to a newspaper calling for a leadership change in the party.

Who are G-23 leaders?

The G-23 group or the Congress rebels are vocal critics of Congress leadership, who have been demanding an organisational overhaul after its members wrote a joint letter to Gandhi in 2020.

The G-23 has got weakened over time with senior leader M Veerappa Moily distancing himself from the group, Jitin Prasada joining the BJP and Mukul Wasnik not attending its meetings in recent times.

However, Thursday’s meeting saw some more leaders joining the group at Azad’s residence to work out the grouping’s future strategy and discuss the Congress’s debacle in the just-concluded Assembly polls. Among the leaders who attended the meeting were Sibal, Sharma, Bhupinder Singh Hooda, Prithviraj Chavan, Manish Tewari, Shashi Tharoor, Vivek Tankha, Raj Babbar, Akhilesh Prasad Singh and Sandeep Dikshit.

The ambit of the G-23 grouping widened this time as some more leaders — Patiala MP Preneet Kaur, former Gujarat chief minister Shankar Singh Vaghela, former Punjab chief minister Rajinder Kaur Bhattal, former Union minister Mani Shankar Aiyar, former Rajya Sabha deputy chairman PJ Kurian and former Haryana speaker Kuldeep Sharma joined the dinner meeting, besides MA Khan.

(With Agency Inputs)