New Delhi: In yet another display of her consensus-based approach to running the grand old party, Congress chief Sonia Gandhi has included some prominent members of the G23 in the various panels set up for the Chintan Shivir in May. A group of senior Congress leaders who had written a letter to Sonia in 2020, demanding elections for all party posts and a full-time visible party chief, later came to be known as the G23. These senior dissenters were blamed by the Sonia loyalists for questioning her authority. The G23 argued they only wanted to strengthen the Congress but still got isolated within the party.
Recently, when Sonia started discussing Prashant Kishor’s plan to revive the party along with select senior leaders, the notable names from the G23 were missing. Mukul Wasnik, a signatory to the G23 letter, was the only one who found a place in the panel which reviewed Kishor’s plan. On Monday, Sonia formed six new panels which will prepare detailed reports on various topics and will discuss them threadbare at the Chintan Shivir to be held in Udaipur between May 13 and 15.
Former leader of the opposition in the Rajya Sabha Ghulam Nabi Azad, who sort of led the G23, and Shashi Tharoor, who attended a G23 meeting recently, have now been included in the panel on the political situation in the country. Veteran Mallikarjun Kharge has been named as the convenor of the panel on the political situation. Similarly, veteran Anand Sharma, who was Azad’s deputy in the Rajya Sabha, and Lok Sabha member from Anandpur Sahib in Punjab Manish Tewari have been included in the panel on economy, for which former finance minister P Chidambaram has been made the convenor.
Mukul Wasnik has been made the convenor of the panel on restructuring the organization while another G23 member and former Haryana chief minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda has been named the convenor of the panel on agriculture. Interestingly, the name of former law minister Kapil Sibal, who had been a vocal member of the G23 and had demanded a leadership change after the recent loss in five states, is missing from any of the panels set up for the Chintan Shivir debate.
The nomination of new Punjab Congress chief Amarinder Singh Raja Warring as the convenor of the panel on youth and empowerment indicates that Sonia wants to give key roles to the young promising leaders who will take the grand old party forward and implement its social welfare agenda. Trampling upon the rights of the weaker sections, peace and harmony, and welfare of the poor and the working class will be a major focus area of the three-day brainstorming session in Udaipur, party spokesperson Randeep Surjewala had said after the panels were announced on Monday.
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