Shashi Tharoor also asserted that he is not the G-23 candidate for the election.
New Delhi:
Shashi Tharoor, one of the two candidates for the October 17 Congress president election, revealed today that Sonia Gandhi told him “you are most welcome to contest” and that there would be no “official candidate” as her family would stay neutral.
The Congress MP also asserted that he is not the G-23 candidate for the election, the party’s first in over 20 years.
On not specifically consulting with the “G-23” or the group of dissenters who wrote to Sonia Gandhi in 2020 calling for a massive overhaul in the party, Mr Tharoor said: “I didn’t feel need to speak to colleagues beyond their individual capacity. I don’t think there’s an organisation called the G-23 beyond media imagination.”
He added: “I need the backing of 9,000 people, not 23. I am not the candidate of the G-23.”
Mr Tharoor said when he met with Sonia Gandhi to inform her about wanting to contest, she didn’t try to dissuade him at all.
“If she might have said why do you want to contest, we always do things by consensus, leave it to us, we will find the right person…But there was nothing of that sort. On the contrary, she said exactly the opposite. She said ‘we believe the elections are good for the party. If you want to contest, you are most welcome’,” Mr Tharoor told NDTV.
Mr Tharoor said he asked Sonia Gandhi whether there would be an official candidate. “She said there will be no official candidate, as far as I am concerned the entire family is neutral in the race. I had same conversation but both Priyanka Gandhi Vadra and Rahul Gandhi and I got the same message consistently. When Digvijay Singh went to Sonia Gandhi he got the same message,” the Congress leader said.
