23 CONG LETTER WRITERS PLAN DRIVE TO ‘SAVE IDEA OF INDIA’

NEW DELHI/JAMMU: The group of 23 Congress leaders who demanded an overhaul in the 135-year-old party are launching a nationwide campaign to “save the idea of India’’. The series of rallies and public meetings will kick off on Saturday in Jammu, where former Rajya Sabha member of Parliament Ghulam Nabi Azad, one of the 23, has invited his colleagues.

According to two people aware of the details, Anand Sharma, Manish Tiwari, Bhupinder Hooda, Vivek Tankha and Kapil Sibal, also among the 23, will join him in Jammu.

“He asked us to be there and so we will all go in a show of solidarity,’’ said one of the 23. The plan is to have two public meetings on Saturday, and another on Sunday. “We are going to have this across the country. After Jammu, we have planned in Ludhiana and Kurukshetra,’’ this person added.

It wasn’t immediately clear whether the Congress and its local units would be involved in these meetings.

Last August, the 23 leaders wrote a letter to Congress President Sonia Gandhi in which they called for “full-time and effective leadership”, elections to the Congress Working Committee (CWC), and a mechanism guide the party’s revival. The issues were discussed, but no resolution found, at a fractious Jan 22 meeting of the Congress Working Committee.

Subsequent party appointments have seen younger leaders who want Rahul Gandhi back as the party president being given precedence in organisational appointments over some of the signatories.