New Delhi: The core members of rebel group of Congress workers, G-23, met at the residence of senior party leader Ghulam Nabi Azad for the second time over the last 24 hours.
This meeting is said to be a feedback session after Bhupinder Singh Hooda met Rahul Gandhi on Thursday morning, a day after the G-23 pitched for an ‘inclusive and collective leadership’ in the Congress.
During the second meeting, former Haryana Chief Minister Hooda and Azad are said to have discussed ‘concrete proposals’, the details of which were not known yet, to strengthen the party after the recent poll debacle. Among those present were Kapil Sibal and Anand Sharma.
The meeting between Gandhi and Hooda is being seen as an attempt 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 key states.
According to sources close to news agency PTI, during the meeting that lasted for around an hour and half, they deliberated on the party's defeat in Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Punjab, Manipur and Goa.
However, amid calls by a section of Gandhi loyalists for action against G-23 leader Kapil Sibal, who recently said that the Gandhis should step aside and pave the way for someone else to take over the reins of the grand old party, Hooda is said to have conveyed to Rahul that such a step will be unacceptable as Sibal had only talked about strengthening the Congress.
It is to be noted that the disgruntled G-23 has been persistently seeking a restructuring of the organisation as earlier in 2020, the rebel group had written to the Congress interim president Sonia Gandhi demanding sweeping reforms in the Congress, including a full-time party chief.
“Over-centralisation of the organisation and micro-management has always proven to be counter-productive. The party has witnessed a steady decline reflected in successive electoral verdicts in 2014 and 2019, and the reasons were manifold,” the letter read.
However, Sonia had hit back at the rebels saying that they were free to elect a new party president as she didn't want to take up the responsibilities any further.
At the meeting on Wednesday, the G-23 had made a strong pitch for ‘collective leadership’.
The group on Wednesday had said that the "only way forward for the Congress was to adopt a model of inclusive and collective leadership and decision making at all levels,” stressing that they want to strengthen the party and not undermine it in any way.
Rahul Gandhi's meeting with Hooda holds significance in the context of the G-23 statement and the telephonic conversation Azad had with Sonia Gandhi on Wednesday.
According to sources, Azad is likely to meet Sonia with the proposals soon and make a case for course correction in the party.