Congress leader Rahul Gandhi on Saturday during the CWC meeting said that he "will consider" returning as Congress President. According to a report, it emerged that several senior leaders, including the chief ministers of Punjab, Rajasthan, and Chhattisgarh, as well as former Defence Minister AK Antony, urged the Wayanad MP to come back.
Rahul Gandhi quit as Congress chief two years ago after the party's horrendous showing in the 2019 Lok Sabha election. His resignation threw the party into a leadership crisis from which it has yet to fully recover and prompted the reinstatement of his mother, Sonia Gandhi, as interim chief.
Statements urging Mr Gandhi's return as party chief were made at today's meeting of the Congress Working Committee - the party's highest decision-making body - which reports said had all but finalised a schedule for full-scale organisational polls to be held by September next year.
Meanwhile, today, in an apparent message to the G23, Congress interim chief Sonia Gandhi said she is a full-time, hands-on party president and there is no need for leaders to speak to her through the media. Her remarks came days after Kapil Sibal, one of the leaders of the group of 23 who had written to Sonia Gandhi for organisational overhaul last year, demanded that an immediate meeting of the Congress Working Committee (CWC) be convened and wondered who in the party was taking decisions in the absence of a full-time president.
Recalling that the Congress had finalised a roadmap for electing a regular Congress chief by June 30 but that deadline was extended indefinitely due to Covid second wave, Sonia Gandhi said that today was the occasion for bringing clarity once and for all on the issue of the organisational polls.
A schedule for full-fledged organizational elections had been put before the CWC members, she said.
Sonia Gandhi, former chief Rahul Gandhi, Congress general secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra, Congress chief ministers Ashok Gehlot of Rajasthan, Bhupesh Baghel of Chhattisgarh and Charanjit Channi of Punjab attended the meeting.
(With agency inputs)
