EXCLUSIVE| Congress on Verge of Split, G23 Leaders Await Election Results Of 5 States

There have been many speculations about the rift among party leaders within the Congress which escalated after a group of 23 senior Congress leaders sought an organizational overhaul when the party struggled to recuperate from the loss in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections. The move raised a storm that continues to rage even in the ongoing assembly polls in several states.

Congress Interim President Sonia Gandhi with senior leader Rahul Gandhi

The Grand Old Party led by the Gandhi family is on the verge of split! According to ABP News sources, the G23 dissenters of the Congress party are looking forward to forming a new political party. Sources have revealed that several leaders in the G23 group vehemently opposed the idea of forming a separate party citing that the idea behind writing a letter to Congress President Sonia Gandhi was never about breaking the party to improve the leadership but many in the group did not agree to this and discussed the possibilities of forming a new party.

 

Sources said that some party leaders have floated the idea of splitting the party and the meeting was held recently in March.

 

Reacting to this information, G23 Sources told ABP News that the option to split the Congress party is not being considered now as they are expecting the party to do well in the 5 states election. G23 Sources further said that if the results are not positive for the Congress on 2nd May and the party continues to lose elections one after another then the G23 leaders will take some important steps. They said that everything now entirely depends of the result day of the states and then the leaders will decide on their options and new steps which will be required.

 

Sources told ABP News that G23 leaders were definitely perturbed by the way they were attacked in the Congress Working Committee meet called by Sonia Gandhi to discuss the letter and some were even equated with Jaichand etc. Following which the complete ignorance of the G23 leaders in the Bihar elections also led to their alienation. Except for a few, most of the prominent faces of G23 have yet again not been used in the ongoing state elections. 

 

ABP News sources also said that the way protests were held against Ghulam Nabi Azad in Jammu also led to further escalation of the issue as G23 believes it was only done in solidarity with the retiring Rajya Sabha stalwart Ghulam Nabi Azad, which was misunderstood and taken in a different spirit by the Party.

 

Sources said that all these factors led to the strong belief amongst some of the members of the G23 that the issue now has gone too far and probably there is no point of return. Considering all of the above incidents, the G23 Leaders held a meeting in March and some of them proposed the idea of forming a new party. 

 

ABP News sources also said that the way protests were held against Ghulam Nabi Azad in Jammu also led to further escalation of the issue as G23 believes it was only done in solidarity with the retiring Rajya Sabha stalwart, which was misunderstood and taken in a different spirit by the Party.

 

Going back, the first meeting of the G23 leaders to bring some very imminent changes in the party functioning and sending out a letter for the same to Sonia Gandhi was held in March 2020 last year. The dinner meeting was held at the residence of Congress MP Shashi Tharoor.