'There is no G-23 group, it was all media's idea': Shashi Tharoor

'There is no G-23 group," said senior Congress leader Shashi Tharoor, adding that it was all media's idea.

TN National Desk

Updated Oct 3, 2022, 12:48 IST

Shashi Tharoor filed his nomination to contest Congress presidential poll on Friday. (Photo: Twitter/@ShashiTharoor)

Photo : Twitter

KEY HIGHLIGHTS

1. Shashi Tharoor said there is no G-23 group and it was all media's idea.
2. G-23 is 'rebel' grouping of Congress that had strongly pitched for reforms.
3. Tharoor's remark came a day after Amit Malviya said that G-23 abandoned him.

Hyderabad: Congress presidential poll candidate and senior leader Shashi Tharoor on Monday said that there is no G-23 group and claimed that it was all media's idea.

"There is no G-23 group, it was all the media's idea," Tharoor said while speaking to media in Hyderabad.

"As far as I can tell you, couple of senior leaders wrote a letter, they invited a large number of people to support them. They told me that by phone they had contacted over a hundred people. It so happened that Covid lockdown was on in 2020 and at that time only 23 people were available in Delhi. So that's why 23; it could have been hundred or it could have been more. These were the people available to sign. That's it," he added.

Tharoor's remark comes a day after BJP's Amit Malviya said that the G-23 abandoned their own Shashi Tharoor in favour of Mallikarjun Kharge.

G-23 is a term used for 'rebel' grouping of the Congress that had strongly pitched for reforms. This group of 23 members of parliament from the Congress wrote a letter to Sonia Gandhi in 2020 asking for stronger leadership.

"G-23, it seems, has abandoned Shashi Tharoor. Prominent leaders of the rebel group proposed Mallikarjun Kharge’s name for Congress President instead of Tharoor, who is one of their own. How soon before stories of Congress state offices shutting on Tharoor start doing the round?," Malviya had tweeted.

Further speaking about the Congress presidential election, Tharoor said, "This election is about how Congress should be best equipped to take on the ruling govt today, which is BJP. We've lost 2 elections... We need a renewed, reinvigorated Congress party where it is mobilised effectively to take on this challenge."

Shashi Tharoor filed the nomination to contest in the Congress presidential poll race on September 28. Mallikarjun Kharge is the other frontrunner in the contest after Digvijaya Singh and Ashok Gehlot dropped out of the race.

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