A day after a formal meeting of a section of senior party leaders led by the G-23 faction, Congress chief Sonia Gandhi is learned to have spoken to dissident leader Ghulam Nabi Azad. This was the first dialogue between the so-called dissidents and the party leadership.
Sources said that Azad and Sonia are trying to establish a channel of communication between the high command and the disgruntled lot.
Another round of meeting of dissidents took place at Azad’s residence on Thursday.
On the other hand, former Congress president Rahul Gandhi met Bhupinder Singh Hooda, one of the participants of Wednesday’s dinner meet at Azad’s residence. They are learned to have discussed the concerns and feelings of the party leaders and the need to revamp the party and the way forward following its loss in five Assembly elections.
After the meeting, Hooda visited Ghulam Nabi Azad residence to brief him about the meeting.
The second meeting in the last 24 hours is said to be a feedback session after Hooda met Rahul. Sources said in the two-hour-long meeting Hooda, Azad, Kapil Sibal, and Anand Sharma are said to have discussed concrete proposals, the details of which were not known yet.
The separate meetings between Sonia and Azad, and Rahul and Hooda are being seen as attempts by the Gandhi family to reach out to the dissenters who have shown signs of increasing aggression on the leadership issue after Congress’s dismal performance in the recently-concluded Assembly elections in five States.
G-23 is a group of rebel Congress leaders formed in August 2020. The G-23 leaders have been demanding organisational overhaul ever after successive electoral setbacks starting with the Congress rout in the Lok Sabha poll.
Sources said a meeting between Sonia and some of the G-23 leaders, including Azad was on the cards. The G-23 leaders in a meeting on Wednesday evening stated the “only way forward” for the party was to adopt a model of “collective and inclusive leadership and decision-making at all levels.”
While the party leadership is said to be upset with senior leader Kapil Sibal for suggesting that the Gandhis should step aside, Sonia’s outreach to Azad is seen as an attempt to break the ice and see whether the ballooning is internal crisis can be resolved.
There were three new entrants — veteran leader Mani Shankar Aiyar, Lok Sabha member and former Punjab CM Amarinder Singh’s wife Preneet Kaur, and Gujarat leader Shankarsinh Vaghela, who quit the Congress in 2017 to join the NCP in 2019 and then quit it. He is expected to return to the Congress.
After the Wednesday meeting, the leaders issued a statement. It was signed by 18 leaders: Azad, Anand Sharma, Kapil Sibal, Prithviraj Chavan, Manish Tewari, Bhupinder Singh Hooda, Akhilesh Prasad Singh, Raj Babbar, Vaghela, Aiyar, Shashi Tharoor, PJ Kurien, MA Khan, Rajinder Kaur Bhattal, Sandeep Dikshit, Kuldeep Sharma, Vivek Tankha and Preneet Kaur.
Meanwhile, Congress general secretary Priyanka Gandhi continued to hold discussions with party leaders from Uttar Pradesh to ascertain the reasons for the party’s dismal show in the Assembly elections.
The AICC general secretary, who spearheaded a spirited campaign focussed on women’s issues in UP, separately met State leaders Pramod Tiwari, Acharya Pramod Krishan, Satish Ajmani, Ajay Rai, Ajay Kumar Lallu, and Virender Chaudhary and discussed party’s strategy for the 2024 Lok Sabha elections.