Congress president Sonia Gandhi seems to have finally decided to take some steps towards reorganising and strengthening the party all over India. She is holding a meeting with some members of the 23 dissenters and senior leaders as we go to print.
The party chief wasn’t seen taking any action despite the dismal image of the Congress party in various states and at the national level. Despite his public meetings and his support to the farmers’ protest, Rahul Gandhi has made little progress in improving the overall image of the party. The party has been losing members to other parties at various levels.
Ghulam Nabi Azad, leader of the opposition in Rajya Sabha and one of the 23 Congress leaders who wrote to Ms Gandhi earlier this year, had demanded for a complete overhaul of the party. He also demanded that internal elections be held from top to bottom. Apart from Ghulam Nabi Azad, Anand Sharma, another letter writer is also part of the meeting today.
Among others who are attending the meet are Rajasthan CM Ashok Gehlot, former MP CM and state Congress president Kamal Nath, senior leaders Ambika Soni, AK Anthony and P Chidambaram.
Shashi Tharoor, Manish Tewair, former Haryana CM Bhupinder Singh Hooda (all part of 23 group), Congress general secretary in Punjab Harish Rawat and party’s interim treasurer Pawan Kumar Bansal are also part of the team that is meeting Ms Gandhi to hold talks about party’s future.
With leadership issues in question, the party becoming next to non-existent in many states, cadre leaving the party for better roles in opposition parties, failure of Rahul Gandhi to mobilise both his party members and India’s people at large, have been haunting the party for a while.
It is being said in political circles that Ms Gandhi was keen to see an immediate solution to crisis and also come up with new thought process to regain lost glory. The party will also discuss it suffering major setback in recent by-elections in Rajasthan, despite Rajasthan having a Congress chief minister.