New president of Congress in June, decision after discussion in meeting

New Delhi:

A new president of Congress will be elected in June after five state elections, it was decided today at a party meeting after a discussion between two groups, during which Rahul Gandhi said: “Once and for all, finish it and move on” .

The Congressional Working Committee (CWC) decided that there will be a new congressional president-elect in June 2021, KC Venugopal told reporters after a meeting of the party’s highest decision-making body.

At the CWC meeting, senior leaders Ghulam Nabi Azad, Anand Sharma, Mukul Wasnik and P Chidambaram reportedly requested immediate organizational surveys to be conducted. They are among the leaders of Congress who have raised uncomfortable questions about the leadership and management of the party in recent months after multiple electoral defeats.

Against them were the so-called Gandhi loyalists: Ashok Gehlot, Amarinder Singh, AK Antony, Tariq Anwar and Oommen Chandy, who said that the election of the president of Congress should take place after elections in five states, including Bengal and Tamil Nadu. . One leader commented: “What agenda are we working on? Does the BJP not talk about internal elections like our party? The first priority is to fight the state elections and then the organizational elections.”

Finally, the second group prevailed. The dates for the election of a president of Congress and the CWC will be announced shortly and Sonia Gandhi will make the final decision, the leaders said. The last elections to the CWC were held in 1997.

The next president will be elected at a time when the Gandhis leadership has come under unprecedented scrutiny and internal attacks.

Sonia Gandhi, who took over as interim president in 2019 after her son Rahul Gandhi resigned over the beating in the 2019 national congressional elections, has made it clear that she is not in the running.

So has Rahul Gandhi, who has stubbornly refused to reconsider his resignation and has argued that a non-Gandhi should be given a chance.

But although the Gandhis have declined the top position, they remain the center of power in Congress. No big decisions are made without your approval.

A section of leaders, since last year, has raised their voice against the leadership, but they have not managed to win the support of the party in general.

Last August, in a sensational act of defiance, 23 senior leaders wrote to Sonia Gandhi calling for “visible full-time leadership” and a review of Congress after her long losing streak.

Sonia Gandhi had met with some of the letter writers last month and discussed the issues raised by them. Signatories to the letter include Ghulam Nabi Azad, Anand Sharma, Bhupinder Hooda, Prithviraj Chavan, Kapil Sibal, Manish Tewari and Mukul Wasnik. These leaders emphatically defended the election of a new chief immediately, but were rejected.