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CWC rejects Gandhis’ offer to quit positions

Mar 14, 2022 12:57 AM IST

The Congress Working Committee (CWC) unanimously decided that Sonia Gandhi will continue as the interim chief till organisational polls are held and announced a brain-storming session, signalling an urgency ahead of assembly elections in other states and the Lok Sabha polls in 2024.

New Delhi: Days after disastrous results in the latest round of assembly elections, Congress president Sonia Gandhi expressed her willingness to step down from the party’s post along with Rahul Gandhi and Priyanka Gandhi Vadra, an offer that was rejected by her colleagues, even as the party decided to make “necessary and comprehensive” changes in the organisation.

Congress president Sonia Gandhi with party leader Rahul Gandhi at the CWC meeting in New Delhi on Sunday.(ANI)
Congress president Sonia Gandhi with party leader Rahul Gandhi at the CWC meeting in New Delhi on Sunday.(ANI)

The Congress Working Committee (CWC) unanimously decided that Sonia Gandhi will continue as the interim chief till organisational polls are held and announced a brain-storming session, signalling an urgency ahead of assembly elections in other states and the Lok Sabha polls in 2024.

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The meeting, which lasted over four hours, reaffirmed its faith in the Nehru-Gandhi family, with Sonia Gandhi saying she was ready to make “any and every sacrifice” that the party workers and the CWC wish, according to people aware of the matter.

“If there is going to be a problem with the three of us, we are willing to make any sacrifice,” Sonia Gandhi was quoted as saying by three party functionaries, who asked not to be named. At this point, she is believed to have looked towards Rahul and Priyanka. “We are very clear that the party comes first and nobody is bigger than the party,” she added.

The Congress’s chief spokesperson Randeep Surjewala said every Congress worker wanted Rahul Gandhi to lead the party, but as the process of the organisational polls was underway, the next president would be decided through that process.

Amid calls for reforms in the party after the election debacle, Congress general secretary KC Venugopal said at a news briefing that the party president will immediately take up corrective measures to revamp and strengthen the organisation.

The Congress will hold a “Chintan Shivir” (brainstorming session) after the Budget Session of Parliament and the CWC will meet again before that, Venugopal added. The session is scheduled to end on April 8.

The brainstorming session is set to evolve new long-term strategies and tweaks in the current ones to take on the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and also recalibrate its equations with some regional parties.

“Every single member of the CWC wants Sonia Gandhi to guide the party till organisational elections are held,” Surjewala said.

The CWC, called hurriedly after the grand old party failed to win any of the five states that went to the polls, admitted that the results were a cause of serious concern. It maintained that they “could not effectively expose the misrule of BJP state governments in four states” due to “shortcomings” in its strategy. It added that the party could not overcome “the anti-incumbency in the state of Punjab in the short time after effecting a change of leadership”.

“The Congress party represents the hopes of millions of Indians against political authoritarianism prevailing in the country today and the party is fully conscious of its immense responsibility,” Venugopal and Surjewala said in a statement after the CWC meeting.

The two leaders added that “while humbly accepting the electoral verdict of the latest round of assembly elections, the Congress party assures its workers and the people of India that it will continue to remain a vigilant and vibrant Opposition”. “The Congress party will be fully prepared to face the electoral challenges in the election-going states in 2022 and 2023 as well as in the Lok Sabha elections 2024,” it added.

The Congress leaders told the media that the CWC “unanimously reaffirmed” its faith in the leadership of Sonia Gandhi and requested the Congress president to lead from the “front, address the organisational weaknesses, effect necessary and comprehensive organisational changes in order to take on the political challenges”.

Party functionaries added that the support for Sonia Gandhi was necessary to thwart any attack on the leadership but reminded that in August, the Congress will elect a new president.

“The organisational elections in August would automatically see major reshuffles in the party. But since Gujarat and Himachal Pradesh polls are due at the end of the year, it was necessary to start preparation now,” a leader said, adding that Prime Minister Narendra Modi has already held three roadshows in two days in Gujarat.

At the meeting, all state incharges and special observers for the assembly polls presented their reports. Harish Chowdhury and Ajay Maken submitted their report on Punjab. Devender Yadav and Harish Rawat gave their report on Uttarakhand, while Dinesh Gundu Rao and P Chidambaram submitted their report on Goa. Bhakta Charan Das and Jairam Ramesh presented it for Manipur and Priyanka Gandhi Vadra and Bhupesh Baghel gave a report on Uttar Pradesh.

On the offer of Sonia Gandhi to resign, leader of the Opposition in the Rajya Sabha Mallikarjun Kharge said: “We may have lost but you are the glue that keeps the party together in various parts of the country.” “You are the people that the public identifies with so a Gandhi should be at the help of the party,” he was quoted as saying by one of the leaders quoted above.

In his speech to the CWC, Rahul Gandhi spoke about the challenges the 137-year-old party faced and said: “Only the Congress can defeat the BJP, but we need to have a new way of fighting elections.” He also explained his choice of appointing Navjot Singh Sidhu as the Punjab Congress Committee Chief.

“The surveys showed that Sidhu had 45% popularity and Captain had just 2% popularity. So what do we do with these numbers?” one of the leaders quoted Gandhi as saying.

Ghulam Nabi Azad and Anand Sharma, who are part of “G23”, were seen as “very forthright” at the meeting and discussed things in a constructive manner. Anand Sharma cautioned that the Aam Aadmi Party can create problems for the Congress in Punjab’s neighbouring Himachal Pradesh, where polls are due later this year.

One of the suggestions that Azad is believed to have made to the Congress president is that the chief minister swap, which was just done in September last year in Punjab, should have been done four years ago.

A few months before polls, the Congress removed Amarinder Singh as Punjab chief minister, replacing him with Charanjit Singh Channi.

“Azad sahab said that he was unable to contact Captain to even congratulate him on his win for five months,” said the second person attending the meeting.

“Everything we raise in interest of the party is being seen as anti-party but it should not be taken like that,” Mukul Wasnik, another “G23” leader, was quoted as saying by a party leader.

Rahul Gandhi also brought up the tough ideological battle that the Congress was facing and its inability in being able to counter the BJP’s agenda. One of the ways, he suggested, was to have younger and newer faces in every state. “We have to change the way we fight elections,” he told the gathering.

Priyanka Gandhi Vadra stuck to her state of Uttar Pradesh, telling the others that she only had two choices -- to either sit and do nothing or to fight, and she chose the latter. “Everyone’s future depends on our fight now,” another leader quoted her as saying.

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  • ABOUT THE AUTHOR
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    Sunetra Choudhury is the National Political Editor of the Hindustan Times. With over two decades of experience in print and television, she has authored Black Warrant (Roli,2019), Behind Bars: Prison Tales of India’s Most Famous (Roli,2017) and Braking News (Hachette, 2010). Sunetra is the recipient of the Red Ink award in journalism in 2016 and Mary Morgan Hewett award in 2018.

  • ABOUT THE AUTHOR
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    Saubhadra Chatterji is Deputy Political Editor at the Hindustan Times. He writes on both politics and policies.

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