The debacle of the Congress in the recently-concluded Assembly elections — it was only able to win two seats in Uttar Pradesh, lost Punjab to the Aam Aadmi Party and didn’t fare well in Uttarakhand, Goa and Manipur — has once again put the focus on the demands being made by G-23 leaders of an organisational overhaul.
On Wednesday night, the dissenting leaders met at veteran leader Ghulam Nabi Azad’s house to discuss the way forward and on steps the Grand Old Party needed to make to overturn its fortunes.
Reports state that new faces, including Mani Shankar Aiyar and Preneet Kaur, had made their way to the meeting.
This indicates that there are more leaders than just the G-23, as they are known to be called, who believe in the need for organisation reforms in the Congress.
As the Gandhis struggles to keep its flock in place and the in-fighting continues within the party, we take a look at who the G-23 leaders are, what are their demands and their evolution since 2020.
Origins of the G-23
In August of 2020, 23 senior leaders had written a letter to party chief Sonia Gandhi, asking her for "sweeping changes" in the party.
In the letter, the G-23 sought an overhaul within the party in view of frequent failures at the elections.
Congress G-23's original members were: Ghulam Nabi Azad, Kapil Sibal, Shashi Tharoor, Manish Tiwari, Anand Sharma, PJ Kurien, Renuka Chaudhary, Milind Deora, Mukul Wasnik, Jitin Prasada, Bhupendra Singh Hooda, Rajinder Kaur Bhattal, M Veerappa Moily, Prithviraj Chavan, Ajay Singh, Raj Babbar, Arvind Singh Lovely, Kaul Singh Thakur, Kuldeep Sharma, Yoganand Shastri, Sandeep Dixit and Vivek Tankha. Many of them have been union ministers, chief ministers or the party's state unit chiefs.
In the letter, the dissenters had written, “We have witnessed a steady decline of the Congress party reflected in successive electoral verdicts in state and general elections in 2014 and 2019. Reasons are manifold and need to be immediately identified. Otherwise, the Congress will find itself marginalised, both in the states, which is already apparent, as well as the national level."
The letter further stated, “Even after 14 months of the 2019 electoral verdict, the Congress has not undertaken any honest introspection to analyse the reasons for its continued decline."
It went on to say, "The uncertainty over the leadership and the drift has demoralised the Congress workers and further weakened the party. There has been an erosion of the support base with leaders and functionaries leaving the party in a number of states."
Their demands
The G-23 leaders said their reason for the letter was simply to invigorate the party and be a feasible opposition to the BJP.
Manish Tewari, a part of the collective, at the time had said that they stood by their demand for an elected Congress Working Committee and institution of a parliamentary board to run the organisation.
He had added that an introspection into the defeat in 2014 and 2019 should be undertaken and a proper strategy should be chalked out to secure a majority in future polls.
In August of 2021, senior leader Kapil Sibal had invited criticism from several other leaders when he said that he wondered who in the party was taking decisions in the absence of a full-time president.
A jolt unlike any other
Post the release of the letter, in-fighting broke out in the Congress, with Gandhi loyalists demanding that the G-23 leaders apologise. However, the latter remained firm and said that their letter should be taken in a positive light and as an attempt to change the party’s organisational structure.
Amid this struggle, in June 2021, Jitin Prasada, long considered as one of the closest aides of Congress leader Rahul Gandhi, switched over to the BJP.
He said he had been disillusioned with the party and that was the reason for his jump. His switch was a double jolt for the Congress as he left shortly after Jyotiraditya Scindia had made the jump to BJP.
News18 had reported that Prasada had been targeted internally. The party’s unit in Uttar Pradesh’s Lakhimpur Kheri had passed a resolution demanding his expulsion. The report addded that Prasada was not happy with being denied the post of UPCC chief, which was given to Ajay Kumar Lallu.
G-23 calls grow louder post-poll losses
After the disastrous performance of the Congress in the five states, the dissenting leaders called for a meeting at the residence of former Leader of Opposition Ghulam Nabi Azad in the national capital on Wednesday.
Prior to the meet, Congress MP Shashi Tharoor, who till date was a fence sitter on the matter, wrote on Twitter, "I have learned so much from my mistakes, I'm thinking of making a few more."
Without comment! pic.twitter.com/LsEGM9EapJ
— Shashi Tharoor (@ShashiTharoor) March 16, 2022
It has been reported that the G-23 leaders said the only way forward for the party was to adopt a model of “collective and inclusive leadership and decision making”.
According to Hindustan Times, the G-23 deliberated on the demoralising results of the Assembly election.
Another report by NDTV said that the G-23 ruled out splitting the party for now, but called for the Gandhis to remove their loyalists from key posts to enable a resurrection of India's oldest party.
New members and new demands?
Wednesday’s dinner also was significant as several new faces were spotted participating in the meeting.
Wednesday’s gathering was attended by former Union minister Mani Shankar Aiyar, Thiruvananthapuram MP Shashi Tharoor and Patiala MP Preneet Kaur.
Preneet Kaur's presence at the meet was all the more interesting as the wife of the former Punjab chief minister had been issued a show-cause notice by the Congress for “anti-party activities” last November.
Former Gujarat chief minister Shankarsinh Vaghela, who was expelled from the Congress in 2017, were also spotted.
It is also believed that the G-23 is moving away from its initial demands of an organisational overhaul and now asking for the Gandhis to step down.
This was voiced by Kapil Sibal in an Indian Express interview in which he said, “Leadership is in cuckoo land I want a ‘Sab ki Congress’. Some want a ‘Ghar ki Congress’.”
His comments came a day after the Congress Working Committee had met on Sunday, following which they announced that Sonia Gandhi would continue to lead and initiate changes required to strengthen the party.
But it isn't just Sibal who was scathing in his criticism.
Sandeep Dikshit, a member of the G-23 also launched a sharp attack at the Congress high-command and stated that senior leadership continues to be arrogant despite repeated losses in elections.
Dikshit claimed that the party was completely “inactive". “The party is completely inactive. No decisions are taken. While the leadership is arrogant the coterie is not affected despite losing one election after the other," Dikshit was quoted as telling News18 in a report.
Can the G-23 really help revive the party? Will the Gandhis be able to withstand the criticism and steer the party to its past glory?
Only time can answer these questions, but for now we can only sit back and watch the Grand Old Party’s implosion.
With inputs from agencies
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March 17, 2022 at 12:59PM
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