Moily calls for poll strategist Kishor’s induction into Cong
NEW DELHI: Senior Congress leader M Veerappa Moily on Sunday said some leaders “misused” the G-23 and asserted that if anyone persists with its institutionalisation it would be for “vested interest” as reform of the party was already underway under Sonia Gandhi.
The former Union minister also voiced strong support for poll strategist Prashant Kishor’s induction into the Congress and said those opposing his entry into the party were “anti-reform”. Moily, who was among the 23 leaders who wrote to Gandhi last year seeking organizational overhaul, opposed the institutionalisation of the G-23 and said “some of us put our signatures only for reform of the party from within and to rebuild the party, not to destroy it”.
“Some of our leaders misused the G-23. No sooner did Sonia ji think of reforming the party from within and from the grassroots level, we did not subscribe to the idea of G-23,” the senior Congress leader said, without taking any names. He said with the initiation of reform under party chief Sonia Gandhi’s leadership, the G-23 has “no role and has become irrelevant”.
Priyanka Gandhi begins two-day Rae Bareli tour
Faced with a stiff challenge to halt Congress’s slide in Uttar Pradesh, party general secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra on Sunday began a tour of Sonia Gandhi’s Rae Bareli constituency to energise workers for the electoral battle for UP scheduled early next year. Priyanka Gandhi, during her meeting with party workers, said that the Congress this time, plans to declare candidates well in time for the state Assembly elections, a party leader said.
Rae Bareli, the bastion of the Gandhi family since the days of Indira Gandhi, has five assembly seats out of which two are with the Congress and the BJP each and one is with the Samajwadi Party.