PUNJAB CONGRESS

group of senior leaders in Delhi to resurrect their 2020 demands for organisational changes and internal elections.

Ghulam Nabi Azad, one of the leaders of the so-called G23, wrote to party chief Sonia Gandhi seeking a Congress Working Committee meeting to discuss the Punjab and Goa situations as well as the “mass exodus” in the organisation. Senior Congress leader and former Goa CM Luizhinio Falerio joined the Trinamool Congress on Wednesday.

Another G-23 leader, Kapil Sibal, demanded “open dialogue” and introspection, questioning the lack of clarity in the decision-making process.

He emphasised that the grouping was not made up of yes men: “We are G23 but not ‘ji huzoor (yes, lordship) 23’,” he told reporters in the Capital.

Sibal said he was speaking on behalf of the 23 leaders who wrote to Sonia Gandhi last year and were waiting for the leadership to act on their demands.

“We don’t have a president. So, who’s taking the decisions? We all know and yet we don’t know. We want a CWC meeting for a dialogue to take place,” he said.

The former Union minister clarified that the G-23 leaders did not plan to exit the party. “People close to them have left them. But those who are not considered close, are with them,” he said, referring to the exits of senior leaders in recent months.

Party general secretary Ajay Maken criticised the comments and party workers protested outside his house in the evening with “get well soon” placards.

“My appeal to Mr Sibal and others like him is that they should not denigrate the organisation which has given them political identity by rushing to the media every then and now,” Maken told PTI.