After a meeting of the G-23 members at his residence following the Congress’ poll debacle in five states, senior party leader Ghulam Nabi Azad is expected to meet party chief Sonia Gandhi at 10 Janpath in New Delhi today. News agency ANI quoted sources saying that Rahul Gandhi and Priyanka Gandhi Vadra will also attend the meeting. After Wednesday’s meeting, leaders of G-23 said the only way forward for the grand old party is to adopt a model of collective and inclusive leadership and decision making at all levels.
The G-23 saw some more leaders joining the dinner meeting at Azad’s residence, which was convened to work out the grouping’s future strategy and discuss the Congress’s debacle in the just-concluded Assembly polls in five states. The meeting lasted for over four hours and all the leaders spoke about the strategy to be adopted.
Rahul Gandhi and G-23 member Bhupinder Singh Hooda have concluded their meeting, and Hooda is now heading to Ghulam Nabi Azad’s residence for talks.
Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav on Wednesday said his party scored a moral victory in the Uttar Pradesh Assembly polls as it is “expanding” while the BJP has “shrunk”, apparently referring to the number of seats bagged by his party. The BJP combine got 273 seats while the SP-led alliance bagged 125 seats in the elections.
The ambit of the G-23 grouping widened this time as some more leaders -- Patiala MP Preneet Kaur, former Gujarat chief minister Shankar Singh Vaghela, former Punjab chief minister Rajinder Kaur Bhattal, former Union minister Mani Shankar Aiyar, former Rajya Sabha deputy chairman PJ Kurian and former Haryana speaker Kuldeep Sharma joined the dinner meeting, besides MA Khan. The grouping had given an open invite to other Congressmen to join them at the dinner meeting.