All the four Congress Chief Ministers — Ashok Gehlot, Captain Amarinder Singh, Bhupesh Baghel and V. Narayansamy — along with more than 10 State units have come out in the support of retaining Sonia Gandhi as the Congress President.
The Congress Working Committee has three options in front of it: one, Sonia Gandhi can be pressed to continue as a full time president foregoing the “interim” tag; second, Rahul Gandhi who was elected for a term till 2022, is persuaded to return to the post; and third to place a dummy candidate, who can sit-in for the Gandhi family.
The current Congress Working Committee is heavily in the favour of the Gandhi family. However, among the members — Ghulam Nabi Azad, Anand Sharma, Jitin Prasada — had endorsed the letter to Ms. Gandhi asking her to settle the leadership question. Another CWC member Deependra Hooda’s father Bhupinder Hooda is also one of the signatories of that letter.
Rajasthan Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot has voted in the favour of Sonia Gandhi continuing the task but he also said that in case Sonia Gandhi has decided to leave up the post then Rahul Gandhi should carry the torch forward.
“But if she has made up her mind, I believe @RahulGandhi should come ahead and be the Congress president as the country faces the biggest challenge to save our Constitution-Democracy,” Mr. Gehlot said.
Mr. Baghel, in a written statement in Hindi, giving credit to former Congress president Rahul Gandhi for the electoral victories in Chattisgarh and Rajasthan and impressive performance in Gujarat, said, “In the troubled times our country is going through, Rahul-ji and Sonia-ji are the only ray of hope.”
Senior Congress leader Salman Khurshid had said consensus must be given a chance instead of an election.
Adding that Rahul Gandhi enjoys full support of party leaders and workers, Mr Khurshid said, “I have said very clearly that the Gandhis are leaders of the Congress. Nobody can deny this, even the opposition cannot deny this. I am quite happy having a leader, I don’t worry about whether or not we have a president, we have a leader (in Rahul Gandhi) and that is comforting for me.”
