2.9.20

Rumblings in the Congress

Senior Congress leader Anand Sharma said none of the issues raised by the group of 23 in the letter to party president Sonia Gandhi calling for reforms were discussed in the CWC meeting last week and there has not been any outreach from the leadership since the stormy session.

About the CWC meeting itself, Sharma said, “The issues we raised were never discussed, not one issue was discussed … It was said we had attacked the leadership of Sonia Gandhi. That was not true at all. I said in the meeting that the letter should be given to all the CWC members so that they know the contents. But that did not happen and people in the session were permitted to say things that cannot be allowed in a civilised meeting.”

Asked if there was a dialogue between the two factions, Sharma said, “Nobody has reached out to me. Only one leader called me but no call from the Congress president. There has also not been any outreach to Ghulam Nabi Azad. Rahul Gandhi called Kapil Sibal on the limited point (to clarify that he did not accuse them of being in collusion with BJP) and he also called Azad on that limited issue.”

“Having built the party, we did not deserve it. We had done nothing to warrant such uncharitable comments,” he said. Seen as one of the leading lights of the letter writer group Sharma, however, expressed optimism that there will be a discussion. “I do believe that with Sonia Gandhi as president, we have the collective wisdom to address these issues,” he said.

According to Sharma, they expect that they will be called for a discussion so that “there is no breakdown of communication”. “Had there been a meeting for five months …. But nobody met,” he stated.

Meanwhile, a group of young Congress leaders, seen as close to Rahul Gandhi, took to Twitter to term a news report as a “lie” that named them as having attended a virtual meeting with the former Congress president. The report alleged that Rahul told the meeting that he would retire the senior leaders in the party. Among those who slammed the report were MPs Rajeev Satav, Manickam Tagore and Ravneet Bittu, and Mahila Congress chief Sushmita Dev.

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