Rahul Gandhi reaches out to Bhupinder Singh Hooda, Manish Tewari says Congress needs ‘surgery’

After the meeting with Rahul, Hooda went to Ghulam Nabi Azad’s residence, where they were joined by Anand Sharma. Later in the evening, Hooda, Azad, Sharma and Kapil Sibal — all part of the G-23 group — held another meeting.

Sources said a meeting between Azad and party president Sonia Gandhi is possible on Friday.

“We discussed the political situation in Haryana and discussed how to strengthen the party at the national level,” Hooda told The Indian Express.

The G-23 leaders have cited Rahul’s announcement of Charanjit Singh Channi as the Congress’s chief ministerial face in Punjab and Priyanka Gandhi Vadra’s decision to earmark 40 per cent of the tickets for women in Uttar Pradesh as the latest instances of “unilateral” decisions by the brother-sister duo.

Meanwhile, mounting pressure on the leadership, Manish Tewari, also a key member of the G-23 group, said the Congress is facing an “existential crisis” and “needs a deep and immediate surgery”. With the Congress set to elect its new president later this year, Tewari said, “you cannot have a situation where you select an electoral college and the electoral college, in turn, elects a leader.”

“I think if we go down that path, it will be completely suicidal. So, elections at every level have to take place in a completely transparent manner,” he told The Indian Express. Hitting out at the leadership, he said there was a “disconnect between the ground reality and decision-making” and argued that if the party fails to address these issues and “wants to make it business as usual, then I am afraid we are heading towards extinction.”

Talking about the meeting of some G-23 leaders at Azad’s residence on Wednesday, Tewari said: “There was a deep sense of concern at the continuing electoral reverses, especially after we wrote a letter flagging certain critical reforms that were essential for rejuvenating the party. The Congress has lost 11 states since then. There obviously is a problem — a disconnect between the ground reality and decision-making.”

“Interestingly, while we were deliberating, the news came that five colleagues had been appointed to assess the post-poll situation in the states we lost. There was a collective sense of disbelief at the names. Most of these eminences were chairpersons of the ticket distribution screening committees of states where we suffered a drubbing. In fact, Punjab MPs, when they met Mrs Gandhi on March 16, flagged the issue of very serious malfeasance in ticket distribution as one of the major reasons for the debacle in Punjab. That is a manifestation of the problem,” he said.

He said the Congress is facing “an existential crisis” and “could be looking at the spectre of a Congress-mukt Bharat”. “We lost in 2014 and 2019. Since 2014, out of 49 Assembly elections, we have lost 39. We have won only four elections. So, therefore we are looking at an extremely grim situation. And under those circumstances, the situation does not call for introspection alone. It calls for a very deep and immediate surgery to arrest this portentous drift into oblivion,” he said.

He said it was not the BJP or Modi that had weakened the Congress. “It is we who have weakened ourselves by not getting our act together. So, if the Congress is honest with itself, if it recognises the fact that we are in an existential crisis, where the spectre of Congress-mukt Bharat may end up becoming a reality, where sycophants and people who do Ganesh parikrama all the time are not the ones who should be in leadership positions…. Those who have failed to deliver need to be made accountable and need to be axed as soon as possible. You will find that the party will start resurrecting. But if we want to make it business as usual, then I am afraid we are heading towards extinction,” he said.

Meanwhile, party leaders continued to target Sibal for suggesting, in an interview to The Indian Express, that the Gandhis should step aside. Saying that his remarks were “extremely irresponsible,” Chhattisgarh Health Minister T S Singh Deo demanded disciplinary action against him. “He should be removed from the party,” Deo told The Indian Express.

Deo said he would write to the leadership demanding action against Sibal. “This is extremely irresponsible… Nobody has the right to say that,” he said, adding that the Gandhis should continue to lead the party.