SunstarTV Bureau: The Congress party has decided to elect its president in June after five state elections, during a party meeting, today.
After an argument between two groups, Rahul Gandhi said, “Once and for all, finish it and move on.”
The Congress Working Committee (CWC) has decided that there will be a new elected Congress president in June 2021, KC Venugopal told reporters after a meeting of the party’s top decision-making body.
At the CWC meeting, senior leaders Ghulam Nabi Azad, Anand Sharma, Mukul Wasnik and P Chidambaram reportedly asked for immediate organisational polls. They are among the Congress leaders who have raised uncomfortable questions over the party’s leadership and management in recent months after multiple election defeats.
Ranged against them were the so-called Gandhi loyalists (Ashok Gehlot, Amarinder Singh, AK Antony, Tariq Anwar and Oommen Chandy), who said the Congress president’s election should be held after polls in five states including Bengal and Tamil Nadu.
One leader commented, “Whose agenda are we working towards? The BJP doesn’t talk about internal elections like our party? The first priority is to fight the state elections then organisational elections.”
Finally, the second group prevailed. The dates for the election of a Congress president and the CWC will be announced shortly and Sonia Gandhi will take the final decision, leaders said. The last election to the CWC was held in 1997.
The next president will be chosen at a time the leadership of the Gandhis has come under unprecedented scrutiny and attacks within.
