Dr Shashi Tharoor is a three-term Lok Sabha member from Thiruvananthapuram in Kerala, and a former union minister as well.

However, the Congress leadership did not find him fit enough to lead the party in the Lok Sabha and preferred Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury to him.

As leader of the Congress party in the Lok Sabha, Chowdhury has been a disaster. His recent utterance about President Draupadi Murmu prompted angry reactions from different quarters. The ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) members, including union ministers Nirmala Sitharaman and Smriti Irani, demanded an apology from Congress president Sonia Gandhi for Chowdhury’s remarks against Murmu.

This controversy aside, Chowdhury does not know how to effectively articulate the party’s stand on any issue and in fact on many occasions the Congress party ended up having an egg on its face due to his utterances.

On the other hand, Tharoor is well read, a good communicator and thoroughly understands issues. But the Congress high command somehow does not have that level of trust in him to give him any leadership role.

His interventions in the Lok Sabha on critical issues have been lauded by all and his speeches have often gone viral on the social media.

Having been continuously sidelined, Tharoor decided to join a group of 23 dissenters, who also came to be known as change seekers, demanding a complete overhaul of the Congress party. The G-23 demanded organisational elections from top to bottom and a visible leadership apart from many other things.

This was widely construed as a rebellion against former Congress president Rahul Gandhi and his increasing proximity to KC Venugopal. The dissenters were convinced that Rahul Gandhi will hand over the reins of the party to Venugopal and operate as his remote control.

However, the G-23 is virtually disbanded now given that its prime mover Kapil Sibal has quit the Congress and the others such as Ghulam Nabi Azad, Bhupinder Singh Hooda and Anand Sharma have gone silent. The only G-23 member who keeps on issuing statements is Manish Tewari. Many in the party have speculated that he might be on his way out and looking for options outside.