Congress will have a new elected president by June this year, the party said on Friday even as senior leaders squabbled during the meeting of the working committee over scheduling the organisational polls.
At a marathon meeting of the Congress Working Committee (CWC), the Central Election Authority (CEA) chairman Madhusudan Mistry presented a schedule to hold organisational elections in May, but leaders urged party chief Sonia Gandhi to defer the exercise by a month citing Assembly elections in five states in the April-May period.
“The Congress Working Committee decided that there will be a new elected Congress President by June 2021,” AICC General Secretary K C Venugopal told reporters.
Sparks flew at the CWC meeting as Rajasthan Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot took a jibe at dissenters within the party and their demand for organisational elections, including for the CWC.
Senior leader Anand Sharma took exception to Gehlot’s remarks saying it has become a trend to target the letter writers who have never questioned the leadership of Sonia Gandhi or Rahul Gandhi.
Rahul intervened and urged the Congress President to settle the issue of organisational elections so that the party can focus on important issues facing the nation.
The CEA had proposed holding organisational elections between May 15 and May 30 with the AICC Plenary on May 29.
“All CWC members unanimously requested Congress president that the internal elections should not interfere with the assembly elections,” Venugopal said.
Congress has been without a full-time president since Rahul quit the post in June 2019, owning responsibility for the party’s debacle in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections.
Sonia Gandhi had stepped in as interim President in August 2019 and has been requesting the party to relieve her citing ill-health. Rahul has been reluctant to return as party chief ignoring calls from the Congress rank and file.
In August last year, a group of 23 leaders including Ghulam Nabi Azad, Kapil Sibal, Anand Sharma, Prithviraj Chavan had written to the Sonia Gandhi calling for a more active and visible leadership, a move that was seen as distrust in the leadership of the Gandhi family.
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