Unfurling the national flag at the Congress headquarters on Sunday to mark the 75th Independence Day, Congress president Sonia Gandhi sought to subtly assert her leadership in the presence of ‘detractors’.
Among the senior leaders present were prominent members of Congress’ 23 dissenters or G-23 — who had written to Ms. Gandhi last August, seeking inner party reforms and a ‘visible leadership’ among other issues — including Ghulam Nabi Azad, Bhupinder Singh Hooda and Anand Sharma.
Other senior leaders who attended the celebrations included former party chief Rahul Gandhi, Leader of the Opposition in the Rajya Sabha Mallikarjun Kharge, former Defence Minister A.K. Antony, Pawan Bansal, and Partap Singh Bajwa.
While Mr. Antony had unfurled the Tricolour last year during the first phase of the corona pandemic, Ms. Gandhi doing the honours this year carries a distinct, assertive political message.
In the backdrop of party leader Kapil Sibal — also a member of the G-23 — hosting a dinner last week that was attended by Opposition heavyweights like NCP chief Sharad Pawar, RJD patriarch Lalu Prasad Yadav, CPI (M)’s Sitaram Yechury, and CPI’s D. Raja, Ms. Gandhi’s public engagements have been markedly different.
For the first time during the corona period, she attended the monsoon session of Parliament for a couple of days and shared space with Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Home Minister Amit Shah at the customary tea party hosted by Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla at the end of the session.
Next week, on August 20, Ms. Gandhi will also be hosting a virtual meet of top Opposition leaders including West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, Mahahastra Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray, and Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M.K. Stalin, among others.
“She has called the leaders of the like-minded parties to keep the momentum of Opposition unity that was started by Rahul ji during the monsoon session going,” a Congress leader said.
From playing a key role in the resolving the factional war in Punjab to hosting Opposition leaders for breakfast during the Monsoon session to driving a tractor to Parliament to highlight the farmers’ protests, Mr Gandhi too has made some visible political moves.
And they come exactly a year after the G-23’s explosive letter, widely interpreted as a challenge to the party’s leadership by the Gandhis, asking for internal reforms.
“This project [Opposition unity] is doomed to will fail if the Congress doesn’t revitalise itself,” Mr Sibal had said in an interview to journalist Karan Thapar last Friday.
