Manish Tewari—Initial Response to Letter OK, Ideology Needs Addressing But Many in Cong Support Us

In an interview to Karan Thapar for The Wire, Manish Tewari accepted that a template letter expressing support for Sonia and Rahul Gandhi whilst criticising the 23 letter writers has been circulated amongst many Congress Lok Sabha MPs and several had signed it and sent it to Sonia Gandhi. The Wire has copies of this letter signed by Vincent Pala, Manickam Tagore and Anto Antony. The letter accuses the 23 of “a deliberate attempt at weakening the party”. Mr. Tewari would not accept that this letter had been organized by Sonia Gandhi or her supporters or that it was an attempt to start a campaign against the 23. But he did accept that several MPs have signed identical letters to the Congress President.

In The Wire interview Manish Tewari spoke about several of the main points raised in the August letter. These include the need for an effective, visible and full-time leadership, an independent election authority to conduct Congress’s internal elections, election of CWC members, the creation of a Central Parliamentary Board, the need to immediately identify reasons for Congress’s electoral decline and its poor performance in 2014 and 2019, the need to urgently establish ‘an institutional leadership mechanism’ and the need for a sincere effort to bring on one platform leaders of political parties who were once part of the Congress Party.