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After Rahul Gandhi resigned as party president in August last year, Sonia Gandhi has been the party’s interim chairperson for more than a year since then.
The Congress party sources on Sunday said that Sonia Gandhi is likely to resign as the party’s interim president amid the ongoing political speculation over the leadership of the grand old party.
The Congress Working Committee is going to meet on Monday and according to sources Sonia Gandhi’s resignation from her post will be likely announced in the meet.
After the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, Rahul Gandhi has resigned as the party’s president last year taking responsibility for the disastrous results in the election for the party. Sonia Gandhi has been the interim chairperson since then.
Now the next question that pops up is who would take the post if Sonia Gandhi gives up on it. The answer is not apparent as one might think. The grand old party’s faction is in favor of Rahul Gandhi’s re-coronation of the post of the party president.
However, a few days ago Priyanka Gandhi raised political speculation by casting a doubt on the issue of the presidential post going to a member of the Gandhi’s family.
However, the fact remains that there is an increasing demand that Rahul Gandhi will be once again nominated as the party’s president.
Punjab Chief Minister Captain Amarinder Singh has opposed the challenge to the Gandhi’s family and said this is not the right time to make a decision. He is of the opinion that Sonia Gandhi should remain in her post as long as she wants after which she will be succeeded by her son Rahul Gandhi.
Similarly, Chhattisgarh Chief Minister Bhupesh Baghel has also said that Rahul Gandhi should once again become the Congress party president.
On the other hand, inside the congress, there is a speculation and a growing demand for the elections to be conducted for the party president’s post and also for various seats of Congress Working Committee.
On this issue, veteran Salman Khurshid said that instead of internal elections the congress party should consider checking the internal consensus once.
At the time of writing this piece, the CWC meeting is going on and the interim Chief Sonia Gandhi asked the CWC to begin the process of deliberation to relieve her from her duties.
Moreover, high drama has unfolded during the meeting of CWC after Congress leader Kapil Sibal expressed his displeasure on Rahul Gandhi’s purported remark that the 23 leaders who had written to Sonia Gandhi on the leadership crisis were colluding with BJP.
Senior Congress leader Gulam Nabi Azad was also irked by the remarks of Rahul Gandhi and threatened to resign from his post.
By Gayatri Yellayi
