The Congress leadership on Thursday appeared to reach out to a group of senior leaders demanding internal reforms in an attempt to end the turmoil in the crisis-hit party that slumped to a humiliating defeat in five state elections last week.
Former president Rahul Gandhi opened a line of communication with the G23, or the rebel group of senior leaders, for the first time in many months on Thursday when he invited former Haryana chief minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda at his residence for talks. Another prominent G23 leader, Ghulam Nabi Azad, is set to meet Congress president Sonia Gandhi during the weekend after she called him, people familiar with the matter said.
After the meeting with Rahul Gandhi, Hooda visited Azad and discussed some proposals to help the party, said leaders aware of developments. Deputy leader of the Congress in the Rajya Sabha and another G23 leader, Anand Sharma, was also present at Azad’s residence. The leaders discussed specific demands pertaining to the organisational revamp that will be placed before Sonia Gandhi by Azad.
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{{/usCountry}}The Gandhi family’s, and particularly Rahul’s, outreach to the leaders is significant as his style of functioning has remained the prime reason behind the dissidence. The so-called G23 has often raised questions over how Rahul Gandhi, without holding any organisational responsibility, takes big decisions on behalf of the Congress. The meeting came amid the first signs of thaw between the party’s leadership and the rebel leaders, which has been increasingly strident on the question of internal reforms and elections.
According to two Congress leaders, the discussions between Rahul and Hooda included national as well as Haryana affairs. “Hooda is keen that either his son Deepender or a loyalist be made the state unit chief before the assembly polls due in 2024,” said a leader considered close to him. Another leader suggested that Hooda made his displeasure known to Rahul that it was a wrong decision to install Charanjit Singh Channi by replacing Amarinder Singh months before the election.“He also suggested that a CM face should be projected in Haryana early,” added the second leader.
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Hooda later met a few other G23 leaders at Azad’s residence. They discussed the meeting between Hooda and Rahul and, according to a G23 leader, decided to reiterate their stand that during the meeting between Sonia Gandhi and Azad, a clear message would be conveyed that they are not creating a splinter group but more consultations must take place before taking key decisions.
Sonia Gandhi also spoke to some of her trusted aides ahead of her planned meeting with Azad.
Meanwhile, former Gujarat chief minister Shankersinh Vaghela, who attended the G23 meeting at Azad’s house on Wednesday, said the decision to give the charge of Uttar Pradesh to Priyanka Gandhi Vadra was a “political misfire”.
Addressing the media in Gandhinagar on Thursday, he said that Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi don’t have the right advisers. “Congress should have the right adviser. They don’t have one. At a time when everyone should work to bring the Congress together, they are working to break the Congress,” said Vaghela.
Rahul’s meeting with Hooda assumes significance as the former Haryana CM is considered the only G23 leader with a mass following, and a critical asset for the Congress in the northern state. “There are many senior Congress leaders in Haryana but Hooda is certainly the most popular. The Congress, at this moment, is not thinking of fighting the Haryana polls without Hooda,” pointed out a Gandhi family loyalist. He also added that Hooda’s son Deepender had been involved in campaigning in the states of UP, Punjab and Uttarakhand along with Priyanka Gandhi Vadra.
But Congress Lok Sabha leader Adhir Chowdhury lashed out at the G23 leaders and said, “Sonia Gandhi is always ready for talks with all Congressmen. When the need of the hour is that we fight together, some people are issuing statements against the party leadership. If they have the right intentions, they should talk to Sonia Gandhi.”
Thursday’s developments came a day after the G23 leaders demanded that the Congress leadership “initiate dialogue with other like-minded forces to pave the way for a credible alternative for 2024”, according to a statement released after the meeting.
The leaders — the note was signed by 18 — also said they believed “the only way forward is for the Congress to adopt the model of collective and inclusive leadership and decision-making at all levels”.
Former minister Mani Shankar Aiyar was a surprise addition at the Wednesday meeting, as was Preneet Kaur, an MP from Patiala and wife of former Punjab CM Amarinder Singh, who left the party last year after a bitter fallout.
A third unexpected attendee was Shashi Tharoor, who was part of the original 23 leaders, but had not attended recent meetings of the group. A senior leader said the ranks of the group swelled to 32 on Wednesday night.
Internal reform has long been a point of intense dissension in the Congress but the dispute spilled out in the open after the party slumped to losses in the five state assembly polls that concluded recently, losing one of only three states it ruled on its own.
With criticism mounting, both inside and outside the party, Sonia Gandhi moved to revamp the party’s structure in the five states by asking the respective state unit chiefs to resign. But critics say the changes are dwarfed by the scale of the reorganisation the Congress requires to take on the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in polls later this year.
On Tuesday, Sibal stirred a hornet’s nest by suggesting that the Gandhi family should step away from the leadership of the party — a sentiment that other G23 leaders had previously shied away from openly articulating.
Since then, Sibal has faced backlash from Gandhi family loyalists, who have said he was hurting the party with his public criticism. Some leaders indicated that a resolution may be brought against him for publicly criticising the Gandhis.
At the Congress Working Committee meeting on Sunday, several leaders had backed the Gandhi family and refused to accept an offer of resignation by Sonia Gandhi. The CWC, instead, entrusted her to carry out “necessary and comprehensive” changes.