‘Narendra Modi is scared of Rahul Gandhi only’: Assam Congress leader
Assam Congress president Ripun Bora presented his views on the leadership debate going on inside the party.
Assam Congress president Ripun Bora said on Sunday that he had asked Sonia Gandhi to give party’s leadership to her son since Prime Minister Narendra Modi is scared of Rahul Gandhi only.
“In an earlier video conference meeting with Congress president Sonia Gandhi & Rajya Sabha MPs, I categorically appealed to Sonia Gandhi to give the leadership of Congress party to Rahul Gandhi as Narendra Modi is scared of Rahul Gandhi only,” news agency ANI quoted Bora as saying.
Rahul Gandhi had resigned as Congress president in July last year, taking responsibility for the party’s defeat in Lok Sabha elections.
The leadership question has been creating ripples inside the party, with a section writing to Sonia Gandhi about complete overhaul of the organisation. Other leaders, however, say that Sonia Gandhi is the best choice for the party.
A meeting of the Congress Working Committee (CWC), the party’s highest decision-making body, is scheduled for Monday, news agency ANI reported.
Senior Congress leader and former Union law minister Ashwani Kumar questioned the timing of the letter, saying “there are some who have harmed the party repeatedly even after receiving more than their just dues”.
Kumar said that the Congress will function best on the basis of broad political consensus “hammered through meaningful and wide consultations amongst the leadership.” “Sonia Gandhi’s judgement in the accommodation of competing claims to recognition has generally served the party well.”
Another senior Congress leader Salman Khurshid on Sunday said that the party should give consensus a chance instead of elections which create divisiveness.
Khurshid also said Rahul Gandhi enjoys the “full support” and “endorsement” of party leaders and workers, and it does not matter whether he wears the label of a president or not.
A group of Congress leaders have raised questions and suggestions about the functioning of the party in their letter to Sonia Gandhi.
In her response, Gandhi told them that she was not interested in leading the party once again when the CWC on August 10 requested her to assume the reins of the organisation again, a senior functionary said on condition of anonymity.
