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By Sakshi Patwal with Khushboo
New Delhi: Following a marathon seven-hour meeting, the Congress Working Committee (CWC) on Monday decided that Sonia Gandhi would remain party’s interim president for now. A new chief will be elected within the next 6 months. It was also decided that a committee would be set up to assist Sonia Gandhi to look into the issues raised in the letter by 23 leaders, who called for sweeping reforms within the Congress.
Sonia said she didn’t hold anything against those who had written the letter, which had created a stir within the Congress echelons. In all 23 senior leaders of the Congress had sent a letter to Sonia reportedly a fortnight ago, calling for a “full time and effective leadership” at the top. They included five former Chief Ministers besides quite a few Congress Working Committee members, sitting MPs, and several former Union Ministers.
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Those who had signed the letter were :
Ghulam Nabi Azad (Leader of Opposition in Rajya Sabha ); Anand Sharma, Kapil Sibal, Manish Tewari, Shashi Tharoor (party MPs and former Union Ministers) ; Vivek Tankha, Member of Parliament; Mukul Wasnik and Jitin Prasada (All India Congress Committee office bearers and CWC members); Bhupinder Singh Hooda, Rajender Kaur Bhattal, M Veerappa Moily, Prithviraj Chavan, P J Kurian, Ajay Singh, Renuka Chaudhary, and Milind Deora ( former Chief Ministers and Union Ministers); Raj Babbar (UP), Arvinder Singh Lovely (Delhi) and Kaul Singh Thakur (Himachal) – former Pradesh Congress Committee chiefs; Akhilesh Prasad Singh (Bihar campaign chief ), Kuldeep Sharma (former Haryana Assembly Speaker); Yoganand Shastri (former Delhi Speaker), and former MP Sandeep Dixit.
In her opening remarks at the CWC meeting today, Sonia Gandhi offered to quit from her post and asked the CWC to begin the process of “transition” to relieve her from her duties, saying she had given a detailed reply on the issue to AICC general secretary K C Venugopal.
It may be mentioned that Sonia Gandhi was made the interim president last year after Rahul Gandhi resigned in the wake of the party’s defeat in the Lok Sabha elections.
Former prime minister Manmohan Singh, who spoke after Sonia Gandhi at the CWC meet, urged her to continue and was backed by former Defence Minister A K Antony. Both the Congress veterans criticised the letter.
Meanwhile, high drama unfolded during the meeting after Rahul Gandhi reportedly lashed out at the leaders who had written the letter and questioned its timing. Gandhi reportedly said the letter was written at a time when the party was battling a crisis in Rajasthan and Sonia Gandhi was unwell.
Senior leader Kapil Sibal, one of the signatories of the letter to party chief Sonia Gandhi, hit back at Rahul for his purported remark that signatories of the letter were working in “collusion with the BJP”, saying he had never made a statement in favour of BJP in last 30 years. Sibal later deleted his tweet, saying Rahul informed him “personally that he never said what was attributed to him”.
“Sh. Rahul Gandhi hasn’t said a word of this nature nor alluded to it. Please don’t be mislead by false media discourse or misinformation being spread. But yes, we all need to work together in fighting the draconian Modi rule rather then fighting and hurting each other and the Congress, “Surjewala tweeted while quoting a tweet by senior Congress leader Kapil Sibal.
The Congress later clarified that Rahul Gandhi never made such remarks and warned against being misled by “false media discourse”.
Leader of the opposition in Rajya Sabha Ghulam Nabi Azad also issued a clarification on Rahul’s remarks after he said would quit all posts if the charge was proven.
“Some Congress persons wrote yesterday that we are doing this at the behest of BJP. It is in that reference that I said that it is most unfortunate that some of our colleagues outside the CWC had gone to extent of saying that the letter was sent at the behest of BJP,” Azad said.
“In the meeting, I said those people who are outside the CWC who are making these allegations should prove it and I will resign if they prove it. Rahul Gandhi at no point said the letter was sent at the behest of BJP,” Azad said.
The letter, seeking rehaul of the organisation and questioning the way the party is being run, perhaps prompted Sonia to signal her intention to step down, which also set off a well-coordinated chorus of support for her and son Rahul Gandhi in the form of statements from across state units led by Punjab Chief Minister Amarinder Singh, his Chhattisgarh counterpart Bhupesh Baghel and Rajasthan Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot.
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