A group of dissident leaders in the Congress, also known as G-23, met at senior leader Ghulam Nabi Azad's residence in Delhi on Wednesday night to discuss the future strategy in the wake of party's humiliating defeat in the recently-concluded Assembly elections. Reports said Azad will meet Congress president Sonia Gandhi on Thursday to present the final proposals of the group members before the high command.
Among the leaders who attended Wednesday's meeting included Anand Sharma, Kapil Sibal, Manish Tewari, Shashi Tharoor and Sandeep Dikshit. The ambit of the G-23 grouping increased this time as some more leaders—Patiala MP Preneet Kaur, former Gujarat chief minister Shankar Singh Vaghela, former union minister Mani Shankar Aiyar and former Haryana speaker Kuldeep Sharma joined them.
The grouping had earlier planned a dinner at Sibal's residence, but it was changed at the last minute. Reports suggest the party leadership is extremely unhappy with Sibal after his sharp attack on the Gandhi family over the electoral rout.
The G-23 meeting came two days after the Congress Working Committee (CWC) reposed full faith in Sonia Gandhi and asked her to initiate changes to strengthen the party.
It is understood that both Azad and Sharma apprised the other members of the developments at the CWC meeting and what they spoke on strengthening the party.
According to an ANI report, Azad will meet Sonia Gandhi in the presence of Rahul and Priyanka. The Gandhi siblings have been facing intense criticism as they were at the forefront of party's campaign in the Assembly elections, especially in Uttar Pradesh.
Sibal, in his latest salvo targeting the leadership had said the Gandhis should step aside and give some other leader a chance to helm the party, provoking a backlash from Gandhi family loyalists who accused him of speaking the language of the BJP and the RSS.
Hours before the G-23 meet, Tharoor took to Twitter to post a cryptic message. "I've learned so much from my mistakes, I'm thinking of making a few more," he wrote, with the caption, "Without Comment!"
The G-23 grouping has been critical of the party leadership and has been demanding organisational overhaul, after they wrote a joint letter to Sonia Gandhi in 2020. The group has, however, got weakened over time with senior leader M. Veerappa Moily distancing himself from it, Jitin Prasada joining the BJP, and Mukul Wasnik not attending its meetings in recent times.
With PTI inputs
