Express News Service
NEW DELHI: In a move to placate disgruntled party leaders, the Congress has roped in key members of the G23 grouping, including Ghulam Nabi Azad, Anand Sharma, Manish Tewari and Bhupinder Singh Hooda, into six panels to start the groundwork for the party’s Chintan Shivir next month to discuss organizational restructuring and strengthening.
The meeting scheduled to be held in Udaipur, Rajasthan, from May 13-15 comes as the party is looking to induct poll strategist Prashant Kishor for a revival. The panel also includes disgruntled Kerala Congress leader Ramesh Chennithala.
The Chintan Shivir will also deliberate on the broad strategy of the Congress in the run-up to the 2024 Lok Sabha elections. The Congress chief has constituted six committees – political, social justice and empowerment, economy, organisation, farmers & agriculture, and youth empowerment.
After the deliberations began on Kishor’s revival plan, the G23 leaders have been upset about not being included in the discussions. Mukul Wasnik is the only one among the group who was part of the group that submitted the report to Congress chief Sonia Gandhi on Kishor’s revival plan.
The party had announced the Chintan Shivir after the recent poll debacle in five state assembly elections.
Sources said that Wasnik has been maintaining a distance from the G23 for some time now and has not been attending any gatherings by the grouping. The leaders have said that they have already flagged issues ailing the party and had questioned the need to hire a consultant to address them.
Azad has been named part of the political panel, Hooda heads the panel on agriculture, Wasnik is heading the panel on organization, and Sharma and Tewari are part of the panel on the economy.
Chennithala, who has been upset with the state and had recently met Gandhi over being sidelined, has also been included in the panel on organization.
The party said that the focus of the deliberations will be on the current political, social and economic situation as also the challenges they pose to our society and the nation.
“Issues relating to the welfare and well-being and the trampling upon of the rights of the Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes, Backward Classes, kisans and khet mazdoors, religious and linguistic minorities, women, social justice and empowerment, empowerment of the young will all be deliberated by the Nav Sankalp Shivir,” said RS Surjewala, party media in-charge.
