With the Congress being washed out in five state elections on Thursday, calls for reforms and accountability in the party are going to get louder.
And the group of 23 leaders (informally called the G-23), which had openly advocated for reforms to revive the Congress, will be in the spotlight.
News agency ANI reported on Thursday evening that a G-23 meeting could happen before the end of this week. “Upset with results and rapid decline of Congress in the recent Assembly elections, G-23 leaders to convene meet in the next 48 hours,” a senior leader told ANI.
The G-23 came into prominence as a bloc after it wrote to Congress chief Sonia Gandhi in August 2020 demanding an organisational rejig.
Members of the G-23 include former chief ministers such as Ghulam Nabi Azad (Jammu and Kashmir), Bhupinder Singh Hooda (Haryana) and Prithviraj Chavan (Maharashtra) and MPs such as Shashi Tharoor and Manish Tewari.
The Indian Express reported Azad was anguished by the Congress's defeat in the five states. “I am shocked, my heart is bleeding to see our defeat in state after state. We gave our entire youth and life to the party… I am sure that the party’s leadership will take note of all weaknesses and shortcomings which my colleagues and I had been talking about for quite some time,” Azad was quoted as saying by The Indian Express.
Chavan criticised the Congress's strategy for the recent elections. He told The Indian Express “While it is highly disappointing and frustrating, the defeat was not unexpected. The way the election was handled… it was not unexpected. Everything went wrong. There was no intention to contest seriously… We should have fought with full strength like Narendra Modi and Amit Shah. There was confusion in the organisation in Punjab by changing leadership. Our innings is almost coming to an end. But the future of youngsters in Congress is at stake.”
The Indian Express reported that some G-23 leaders could meet at Azad's residence on Friday to decide the bloc's plans.
