Congress Didn’t Want Us To Campaign In Bihar: Sources Close To Dissenters

New Delhi:

Congress’s Kapil Sibal, who has been beneath hearth from social gathering colleagues over his remarks criticizing the social gathering management, has refused to formally reply to the assaults. Sources near him, nonetheless, mentioned he had expressed shock on being attacked for not campaigning within the Bihar elections.

The assault got here from the social gathering’s chief within the Lok Sabha Adhir Chowdhury. “Had Kapil Sibal gone to Bihar and Madhya Pradesh, he might have confirmed that what he’s saying is right and that he strengthened the place of Congress,” Mr Chowdhury had mentioned.

Leaders near Mr Sibal mentioned Mr Chowdhury’s stance is “unlucky, since Adhir and different leaders aren’t conscious that many of the G-23 leaders weren’t on the checklist of social gathering campaigners for Bihar and none of them might even go to marketing campaign until the social gathering formally requests them”.

G-23 was a reference to the 23 dissenters who despatched the primary vital letter to the social gathering in August, triggering an inside storm and ending up shedding the varied social gathering positions they held.

The most recent Congress versus Congress battle – set off by the Bihar outcomes — snowballed at this time with Mr Chowdhury’s robust feedback in regards to the leaders concerned.

“If some leaders suppose that Congress is just not the fitting social gathering for them, they could arrange a brand new social gathering or can be a part of another social gathering which they suppose is progressive and based on their curiosity,” the MP had advised NDTV.

Mr Sibal was the primary within the line of assault over his interview in The Indian Categorical, the place he suggested the Congress to “acknowledge that we’re in decline”, pointing to the string of reverses in Bihar, Gujarat and Madhya Pradesh the place the social gathering has a powerful presence.

In the identical interview, he had additionally talked about that he had been pressured to go public together with his views as “there was no dialogue and there appears to be no effort for a dialogue by the management”.

It drew barbs from Salman Khurshid, who mentioned: “The actual fact is we all know who the chief is, the very fact is we observe the chief. If we observe the chief and we do not get what you suppose we should always get doesn’t suggest we’re going to quit the chief? Someone would not consider we now have a frontrunner then they do not know what the social gathering is about.”

On Tuesday, in a prolonged Fb submit, Mr Sibal known as dissenters “doubting Thomases” that suffer “periodic pangs of tension” and suggested them to not search for “brief cuts” to energy.

Leaders near Mr Sibal mentioned most partymen agree off the file there’s a systemic downside inside the social gathering and points should be resolved.

With out wanting to affix difficulty with Salman Khurshid or Ashok Gehlot, they added that there’s a “critical drift” inside the social gathering. “Except the social gathering takes some drastic steps and reinvents itself with a powerful and energetic management, the social gathering might not be capable of tackle the Narendra Modi authorities,” they mentioned.