A day after veteran Congress leader Anand Sharma resigned from the chairmanship of the party’s Steering Committee for (poll-bound) Himachal Pradesh, party president Sonia Gandhi on Monday summoned AICC in-charge for the State, Rajeev Shukla, and is said to have directed him to address Mr. Sharma’s concerns.
Sources said that while Mr. Shukla called on Mr. Sharma thereafter, general secretary (organisation) K.C. Venugopal also spoke to him to address the issues he had raised.
On Sunday, Mr. Sharma had gone public to announce his resignation from the Steering Committee, citing “continuing exclusion and insults”.
In a letter to Ms. Gandhi, the veteran Congress leader is said to have given details about how he was not consulted or invited to any of the meetings regarding strategy and planning for the Assembly elections.
Mr. Sharma’s resignation letter comes just days after his colleague Ghulam Nabi Azad resigned from the chairmanship of the Campaign Committee for Jammu and Kashmir (J&K).
Both Mr. Azad and Mr. Sharma are key members of G-23, the ginger group that had written to Ms. Gandhi two years ago to push for internal reforms, including having elected bodies from the Block level to the Congress Working Committee (CWC).
The latest developments are being viewed as a setback to Congress high command’s peace efforts with the party veterans.
