New Delhi: Congress president Sonia Gandhi met Ghulam Nabi Azad recently and offered him the position of the 'Number 2' leader in the party but he politely refused, reports said. Azad wasn't on the list of the party's Rajya Sabha nominations.
Before releasing the list of Congress leaders being sent to the Upper House of Parliament, Sonia Gandhi met with Ghulam Nabi Azad and discussed a host of issues. However, the Rajya Sabha elections didn't come up during the discussion.
Azad reportedly turned down the position saying there is a difference between the thinking of the youth running the party and the old guard.
"Today a generation gap has come between the youth running the party and us. There is a difference between our thinking and their thinking. So the youth are not willing to work with the party veterans," he said, as per the news agency ANI.
Ghulam Nabi Azad is one of the most prominent leaders of the G-23 group which had written a letter to Sonia Gandhi demanding bolstering of the party's inner democracy. Among other suggestions given by the G-23 leaders was to promote collective leadership.
While P Chidambaram, a G-23 signee, got place on the Rajya Sabha list, Anand Sharma was skipped.
Sonia Gandhi has been reaching out to the dissident leaders since last month's Chintan Shivir.
Kapil Sibal, the de facto leader of the group along with Azad, recently resigned from the Congress last month. He is contesting the Rajya Sabha elections with support from the Samajwadi Party.
With inputs from ANI
