After the Congress Working Committee (CWC) took cognisance of a letter written by senior Congress leaders to interim party chief Sonia Gandhi seeking urgent organisational reforms, Mani Shankar Aiyar said he did not sign the letter as no one asked him to sign it.
“I did not sign [the letter] because I was not asked to. Nobody approached me,” Mani Shankar Aiyar told the Hindustan Times. While talking about the dinner hosted by Shashi Tharoor five months ago, Mani Shankar Aiyar said that ‘a general discussion to revive the party and the need to go back to our secular credentials was discussed’.
“There was a general discussion to revive the party and the need to go back to our secular credentials. There was a suggestion, which nobody opposed, of the need to send a letter. Nobody, however, approached me after that dinner," Aiyar told Hindustan Times.
The CWC meeting was held after a collective letter was written by over 20 senior leaders. The letter seeks sweeping changes including "full time" active leadership, a mechanism for collective leadership to guide the party's revival and elections to CWC. The resolution adopted unanimously at the end of the CWC meeting took note of the letter.
The CWC, party’s highest decision-making body, on Monday unanimously requested Sonia Gandhi "to continue to lead the Indian National Congress" until such time as circumstances will permit an AICC session to be convened. During the crucial meeting, CWC adopted a resolution which authorised Sonia Gandhi to take necessary organisational changes that she may deem appropriate to take on the challenges faced by the party. The resolution said inner-party issues cannot be deliberated through the media or in public and advised all concerned to raise such issues only in party fora in the interest of propriety and discipline.
