Veteran Congress leader Prithviraj Chavan on Saturday issued a clarification on his earlier statement, where he said he had not met Rahul Gandhi in the last four years. The member of the G23 rebel group said it was not always necessary to meet the former Congress president, as reported by news agency ANI.
Chavan was quoted as saying, “He had resigned from his post in the organisation… He’s opposing Prime Minister Narendra Modi in his own way and going across the nation and abroad. Not necessary to meet him every time.”
He further said in the last two years, it had anyway not been possible to meet anyone due to the Covid-19 pandemic. In a recent interview, the former Maharashtra CM had said he had been unable to meet Rahul in the last four years.
Chavan had also said there was no “chintan” or introspection at the recent Congress conclave in Udaipur. “I occasionally meet Dr Manmohan Singh whenever I am in Delhi. But his health is not what it used to be earlier. He is always hospitable and ready to talk. I have also met Sonia Gandhi whenever I sought time, but I haven’t been able to meet Rahul Gandhi for long time… I think in four years. There is a complaint that the party leadership is not as accessible as it should be,” said Chavan during the podcast.
The G23 is a group of dissident leaders who are pressing for organisational reforms in the Congress, which has suffered one electoral setback after another in the recent years. Speaking about the chintan shivir at Udaipur, Chavan said the Congress president had agreed to hold a “chintan shivir” to discuss the issues before the party, but someone “more loyal than the king” decided that a chintan or introspection wasn’t needed.
“So, the Udaipur meeting was a ‘nav-sankalp (new resolution) shivir’. The party felt that a post-mortem was not needed and it only needed to look at the future,” he said, adding, “there should have been an honest introspection, not to fix accountability or hang people, but to ensure that we don’t repeat those mistakes. After the Assam and Kerala assembly polls, a committee was formed to go into the party’s performance. But the committee’s report was buried in a cupboard, which is not in the correct spirit of things.”
(With PTI inputs)
Read all the Latest Politics News here
Comments
0 comment