Two days after a meeting of young Congress leaders at Punjab Bhawan brought to the fore differences in the party that had taken on the colour of an inter-generational battle, four of them met party general secretary Janardan Dwivedi briefly on Thursday, party sources, said to tell him about their concerns.
Mr. Dwivedi, along with fellow general secretary Digvijaya Singh, had been the subject of criticism at Tuesday’s meeting of young leaders for airing their views in public rather than in party forums — they had specially objected to public criticism of their vice-president Rahul Gandhi by Mr. Singh.
But even as the four young secretaries — Harish Chowdhary, Naseeb Singh, Prakash Joshi and Shakeel Ahmed Khan — were meeting Mr. Dwivedi, Mr. Digvijaya Singh tweeted: “I support the demand of Secretaries of the AICC. Generational Change must happen. It has been a pleasure working with my Secretaries in the AICC.”
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Meanwhile, in Amethi, Mr. Gandhi — who is in the eye of the storm — sought to put a lid on the controversy by telling journalists who asked him about the differences within the party: “Congress party is an old organisation... There are multiple voices and all those voices will bring solution to the party.” Pressed further on the subject, he said, “There are always these types of tension and we will deal with it.”
Later, Mr. Joshi told PTI , “All those leaders giving public statements should first introspect how far they discharged the responsibility that was given to them… what is wrong if Rahulji wants to involve the voice of workers in decision-making? We are fully with him even if he has to take some hard measures.”