Congress MP Rahul Gandhi on Tuesday evaded questions about Kapil Sibal's remark on "I want sab ki Congress".
In an interview to The Indian Express, Sibal said he is neither surprised by the party’s defeat in the Assembly elections nor the decision of the CWC to reaffirm faith in the leadership of Sonia Gandhi. He said a large number of leaders outside the CWC have an entirely different point of view.
“I cannot talk on behalf of others. It is purely my personal view that today at least I want a ‘Sab ki Congress’. Some others want a ‘Ghar ki Congress’. I certainly don’t want a ‘Ghar ki Congress’. And I will fight for a ‘Sab ki Congress’ till my last breath. This ‘Sab ki Congress’ means just not getting together, but getting together all those people in India who don’t want the BJP,” he said.
“There is a Congress outside the CWC… kindly listen to their views, if you choose to… Lots of leaders like us who are not in the CWC but in the Congress have an entirely different point of view. Is it that we don’t matter because we are not in the CWC? Therefore the CWC, according to them, represents the Congress party in India. I don’t think that’s correct. There are lots of Congressmen around the country, people from Kerala, from Assam, from Jammu and Kashmir, from Maharashtra, from Uttar Pradesh, Gujarat, who don’t hold that point of view,” he said.
Sibal also appeared to be critical of Sonia Gandhi's long tenure as Congress chief. She had assumed the post in 1998. Rahul Gandhi briefly held the post for less than two years from 2017 to 2019, when he resigned owning up responsibility for the party's performance in the Lok Sabha polls; this led to Sonia returning as interim chief of the Congress.
