Signs of a thaw have emerged as Congress seeks to elect a new chief in the New Year. (ARCHIVE)
New Delhi:
A group of congressional “rebels” who wrote a letter signaling a change in leadership and calling for radical organizational changes are finally able to meet with Sonia Gandhi. Former Madhya Pradesh chief minister Kamal Nath was key in organizing the meeting, sources say.
Twenty-three leaders had signed the letter, but not all will be at the meeting. A core group of five or six leaders is believed to represent the broader concerns.
The meeting will take place on Saturday, sources say, in a move towards reconciliation. It is unclear if Rahul Gandhi and Priyanka Gandhi Vadra will be present.
But Congress says it is not just a meeting between Sonia Gandhi and the rebels; Others who were not signatories to the letter will also be present.
Kamal Nath, sources say, has backed the cause of so-called dissident leaders, who had expressed concern over the party’s downfall and called for “active and present leadership” in a letter in August. It was an impressive act of defiance on the part of a group that included the main defenders and spokesmen of the party.
Kamal Nath, who lost power in Madhya Pradesh in March following the defection of senior leader Jyotiraditya Scindia to the BJP, played a role in persuading the Gandhis to meet with letter writers, sources say. Until now, he had kept his distance from dissenters.
Shortly after the letter bomb fell, some of the “dissidents”, such as Ghulam Nabi Azad, were snubbed when seeking a date with Sonia Gandhi. Instead, Azad and another letter writer, Mukul Wasnik, faced virtual ambush at an online congressional meeting, in the presence of the Gandhis.
Signs of a thaw have emerged as Congress seeks to elect a new chief in the New Year. Sonia Gandhi, 74, has been the party’s interim president since her son Rahul Gandhi resigned last year for the second consecutive defeat in the national congressional elections.
Since then, the party has lost two key states, Karnataka and Madhya Pradesh, and has barely held on to Rajasthan, where the rebel Sachin Pilot appeared after meeting with the Gandhis. Recently, Rajasthan’s chief minister, Ashok Gehlot, hinted that the threat of the BJP trying to overthrow his government with the help of rebels in Congress had not disappeared.
A rebellion threatened to break out again last month after congressional poor performance in the Bihar elections. Kapil Sibal, one of the letter writers, issued a strong blow to the leaders, saying that “the time for introspection is over.” After him, other party leaders like P Chidambaram also called for a “comprehensive review” and suggested that the party needed to strengthen its core.
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