A day after the high-profile meeting of Congress’ G-23 at party veteran Ghulam Nabi Azad’s residence, former party chief Rahul Gandhi reached out to former Haryana Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda on Thursday.
There has been no official word on what transpired at the meetings but the leaders are said to have discussed organisational restructuring plans.
A much anticipated meeting between Mr. Azad, who is actively leading the ginger group that is pushing for a “collective and inclusive leaders”, and Congress president Sonia Gandhi, however, has not yet taken place.
But Mr Hooda, a prominent member of G-23, had a 45-minute meeting with Mr. Gandhi at the latter’s residence. Congress general secretary (organisation) K.C. Venugopal was also present at the venue though it was not clear if he attended the meeting.
Soon after the meeting with Mr. Gandhi, Mr. Hooda directly drove to Mr Azad’s residence, where another G-23 member, Anand Sharma, joined in. In the evening, there was another round of meeting of the core group of G-23 at Mr. Azad’s place in which Kapil Sibal also joined in.
These leaders are believed to have discussed concrete proposals to strengthen the Congress and ensure “collective and inclusive leadership in decision making,” a key demand of the group.
Role for Hooda’s son
There is speculation in some quarters that the Congress leadership may consider elevating Mr. Hooda’s son and Rajya Sabha member Deepender Hooda as Haryana Pradesh Congress Committee chief.
However, in the middle of truce attempts, the chorus for disciplinary action against some of the prominent leaders of the group is growing. Responding to G-23 leader Kapil Sibal’s comment that the Gandhis should step aside from leadership roles, Chhattisgarh Health Minister T.S. Singhdeo called for his expulsion.
“Among the tough decisions being taken in this course correction, Mr. Sibal must be expelled from the party for going public with his personal and obnoxious opinion against the combined decision of CWC [Congress Working Committee],”tweeted Mr. Singhdeo.
Kharge’s charge
The tweet comes a day after Leader of the Opposition in the Rajya Sabha Mallikarjun Kharge, accused the G-23 of weakening the party.
“Sonia Gandhi is taking all steps that have been discussed at the CWC. If they [G-23 leaders] still speak like this, it means they are trying to break the party,” Mr. Kharge stated.
G-23 leaders contested such a claim and pointed out that Ms. Gandhi appointed the same set of people to suggest organisational restructuring in the States where they planned the party’s strategy for elections.
“Jairam Ramesh handled Manipur, Ajay Maken decided ticket for Punjab and Avinash Pande did so in Uttarakhand. And now, they will tell the party what went wrong. This itself shows that the leadership is not serious about course correction,” said one G-23 leaders.
