Congress leader Ghulam Nabi Azad on Friday met party president Sonia Gandhi at her residence in New Delhi, ANI reported.
The meeting comes two days after Azad had hosted leaders from the “Group of 23” at his residence to discuss the party’s future after its poor performance in the Assembly elections in five states.
The Group of 23, or G-23, comprises Congress leaders who have been seeking an organisational overhaul in the party since 2020.
“It was a good meeting,” Azad said, according to NDTV. “It may be news for you [media] but it was a regular, usual meeting...The discussion was on how unitedly Congress party can prepare for the upcoming elections.”
Azad said there was no question on the leadership of the Congress party.
“All members of the Congress party decided unanimously that she [Sonia Gandhi] should continue as the president, we just had some suggestions that were shared,” he said, according to ANI.
Sonia Gandhi and party leaders Rahul Gandhi and Priyanka Gandhi Vadra had offered to resign from their posts after Congress performed poorly in the Assembly elections.
The Congress had managed to win only 55 of the 690 seats spread across Uttar Pradesh, Punjab, Manipur, Goa and Uttarakhand. It lost Punjab to the Aam Aadmi Party and failed to wrest power from the Bharatiya Janata Party in Uttarakhand, Goa and Manipur.
In Uttar Pradesh, Congress won just two seats in the 403-member state Assembly. In all states except Uttarakhand, the Congress’ vote share and the number of seats plummeted.
On March 13, the Congress party’s working committee had held a meeting to review the party’s poor performance. The leaders also turned down the resignations offered by the Gandhis.
On March 16, Azad and other leaders of the G-23 in a statement had said that the “only way forward” for Congress was to adopt a model of “collective and inclusive leadership and decision-making at all levels”.
“In order to oppose the BJP, it is necessary to strengthen the Congress party,” the leaders had said. “We demand the Congress party to initiate dialogue with other like-minded forces to create a platform to pave the way for a credible alternative for 2024.”
Apart from Azad, the statement was signed by 18 Congress leaders including Shashi Tharoor, Kapil Sibal, Manish Tewari, Anand Sharma, Prithviraj Chavan and PJ Kurian.
Meanwhile, Congress leader Rahul Gandhi met former Haryana Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda, a G-23 member, on Thursday. This was his first meeting with a leader from the group since the party’s poor performance in the Assembly elections.
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