Congress crisis has become graver: Change-seekers

Some Congress change-seekers on Friday night held preliminary discussions on the assembly election debacle and concluded that the crisis and challenge confronting the party “have become graver” since 23 of them wrote to party chief Sonia Gandhi nearly two years ago seeking organisational and leadership reforms, only to see the leadership obfuscating their demands.

During an informal meeting of the six representatives of the group of change-seekers, including Ghulam Nabi Azad, Anand Sharma, Bhupinder Hooda, Kapil Sibal, Manish Tewari and Akhilesh Prasad Singh, at Azad’s residence, they felt that the Congress performance was “disastrous in the poorly managed” polls in five states. They also expressed concern over the manner in which internal mismanagement paved the way for AAP in Punjab and which could subsequently lead to the AAP queering the pitch for Congress in other poll-bound states.

A larger meeting of change-seekers may take place soon.

While the AICC talk of Gandhi convening a CWC meeting is being seen as the usual diversionary tactics, the change-seekers will do the needful if at all the meeting is called.