Congress is one party and Sonia Gandhi is its president: Ghulam Nabi Azad

Senior Congress leader Ghulam Nabi Azad met Congress president Sonia Gandhi on Friday and said he conveyed suggestions to strengthen the party.

Speaking to reporters after meeting Sonia Gandhi, Azad said it was a good meeting with the Congress president with the discussion centred on how to prepare and fight unitedly the forthcoming assembly polls to take on rival parties.

Playing down the meeting, he told reporters that it "may be news for you but we keep meeting the Congress president at various intervals".

"Mrs Gandhi keeps having discussions with leaders to strengthen the organisation. A few days ago the working committee had met and suggestions were asked as to how to strengthen the Congress party and what were the reasons for the defeat (in five assembly polls). I had also given my suggestions," he said.

He said there were no discussions on leadership change, neither was that anybody's demand.

"As far leadership is concerned, it was already decided in the CWC (last Sunday) that Mrs Sonia Gandhi should continue. Leadership isn’t the issue, nobody has said that Mrs Gandhi should quit. We just had some suggestions that were shared," Azad said.

He said that Sonia Gandhi had offered to resign from the post of interim president during the CWC meeting, but everyone had unanimously asked her to stay on. He added that Congress workers will vote for the next party president whenever organisational elections are held.

On the so-called G-23 group, Azad said, "Congress is one party and she [Sonia Gandhi] is the president, the rest of us are leaders.”

The meeting comes a day after members of the G-23 held a flurry of meetings over measures to revamp the party.

After the Group of 23 pitched for an "inclusive and collective leadership" in the Congress, Bhupinder Singh Hooda, one of its members, met Rahul Gandhi on Thursday and the two leaders were learnt to have discussed a revamp of the party organisation, a key demand of the dissenters.

(With PTI inputs)