Dissenters blow their trumpets!
What could be termed as taking the dissent physically and visibly in public, the group of dissenting Congress leaders referred to as ‘G-23', admitting that the Congress is weakening, today reiterated their stance that the party needs an overhaul and restructuring.
It is the first time that the dissenters have together publicly vent out their anger against the party leadership that came ahead of elections in Kerala, Assam, West Bengal, Tamil Nadu and Puducherry.
“It is an occasion to speak the truth and I will speak the truth. Why have we gathered here? The truth is we can see that Congress is weakening. We had gathered earlier also and together we have to strengthen the Congress,” Sibal said addressing an event dedicated to Mahatma Gandhi.
An indication is given that their campaign for bringing much-needed change in the party structure will be taken to other parts of the country. The event was attended by several Congress leaders like Bhupinder Singh Hooda, Manish Tewari, Vivek Tankha and Raj Babbar of the group, now called ‘G-23', which had triggered a storm in the party last year with their letter to Congress chief Sonia Gandhi, expressing unhappiness over its functioning and demanding a full-time party president.
In a public show of dissent, the ‘G-23' leaders, including Gulam Nabi Azad, Anand Sharma and Kapil Sibal, who have been pressing for a leadership change and organisational overhaul in the Congress gathered on one stage here on Saturday, saying the party is weakening and they have come together to strengthen it.
“It is an occasion to speak the truth and I will speak the truth. Why have we gathered here? The truth is we can see that Congress is weakening. We had gathered earlier also and together we have to strengthen the Congress,” Sibal said addressing an event dedicated to Mahatma Gandhi.
The event was attended by half a dozen Congress leaders out of 23 original signatories of the dissenting letter written to the Congress President in August last year. Bhupinder Singh Hooda, Manish Tewari, Vivek Tankha and Raj Babbar of the group, who were called ‘G-23', that triggered a storm in the party last year expressing unhappiness over its functioning and demanding a full-time party president.
The conspicuous absence of the J&K Congress party office bearers and their aloofness from the function give enough indications that the party is divided in Jammu and Kashmir and the official unit does not support the contentions expressed by the ‘G-23' leaders in J&K. A senior party leader when asked about the event, out of the ambit of Congress platform, avoided direct answer but said they were senior and highly respected members of the party and their best contribution to the Congress' cause would be to get active in five poll-bound states and strengthen the party there. He did not comment on the leaders' concern over the “weakening” of the Congress.
The open dissension and rebellions are not new to the Congress as it has seen scores of such incidents but mostly such fissures fizzled out after some time either by the defections of the dissatisfied lot or re-mergers back to Congress of the outfits made by the rebel leaders.
While the ‘G-23' leaders never openly challenged the leadership of Sonia Gandhi and she had even shown the broadmindedness, on the face of it, by saying that she had no ill-will or any negativity towards those who wrote the letter, the fact is that the signatories of the letter have to face the backlash and consequence of raising what the Family loyalists termed a ‘banner of revolt'.
