CWC asks Sonia Gandhi to lead from the front; Chintan Shivir being held

Sonia Gandhi, Rahul Gandhi, Congress meeting
Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi at a conference meeting recently
Sonia Gandhi, Rahul Gandhi, Congress meeting
Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi at a conference meeting recently

The Gandhis were reported to be offered to quit by NDTV on Saturday, prompting a rejection from the party. However, Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury, a senior Congress leader, verified the same to news agency ANI on Sunday. He was cited as saying, “Congress interim president Sonia Gandhi stated she and her family members Rahul Gandhi and Priyanka Gandhi Vadra are willing to sacrifice for the party, but we all rejected this.”

“The CWC unanimously reaffirmed its faith in Smt. Sonia Gandhi’s leadership demands that she leads from the front, correct organisational deficiencies, and make essential and thorough organisational changes in order to meet the political challenges,” Congress said in a statement.

The party has said that when the budget session of parliament concludes, it will organise a “Chintan Shivir” (brainstorming session) to focus on the organisational elections.

More than 50 leaders attended the meeting, outnumbering the total number of Congress MLAs and MPs in the five states where elections were held: Uttar Pradesh, Goa, Uttarakhand, Manipur, and Punjab.

The magnitude of the Congress defeat has reignited calls for substantial organisational changes and accountable leadership, which were originally raised two years ago when a group of 23 dissenters, called the G-23, penned an angry letter to Sonia Gandhi.

Other sources of vehement criticism of the senior leadership surfaced this time, albeit off the record. There has been criticism that Rahul Gandhi, who stepped down as Congress president after the party’s second straight national election setback in 2019, continues to call the shots while not holding any formal post.

His and his sister Priyanka Gandhi Vadra’s decisions have been blamed for the party’s catastrophic defeats in Punjab, which he once ruled, and Uttar Pradesh.

Anand Sharma, Ghulam Nabi Azad, and Mukul Wasnik are the sole members of the “G-23” in the CWC. Mr Sharma and Ghulam Nabi Azad, according to sources, expressed themselves frankly at the meeting.

Rahul Gandhi, according to Rajasthan Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot, should be the Congress’s leader. “Nobody from the Gandhi family has served as Prime Minister or Minister in the recent three decades. It’s critical to recognise the Gandhi family’s importance to the Congress’s unity “He told ANI news agency.

This time, Congress lost power not only in Punjab, one of the three states it controls on its own but also in Goa and Manipur. It barely won two seats in Uttar Pradesh, and its vote share fell to just 2.4 per cent.

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