Sonia best bet for Oppn leader: Congress

There is a growing demand within the Congress for either Sonia Gandhi or Rahul Gandhi to take up the post of Leader of Opposition in the Lok Sabha where the party’s number has been reduced to 44 seats.

A group of Congress leaders, however, feels Sonia is the best bet for the post as she can lead the attack on the Narendra Modi government in the Lower House.

“The best option for the post of the Leader of Opposition in the Lok Sabha is the Congress president. If she declines, the next best is Rahul Gandhi,” a senior Congress leader said.

The leader also agreed to a suggestion that Rahul should “show some courage” and lead the party in the Lok Sabha, particularly when the Congress is down in the dumps.

Earlier, Indian Youth Congress president Rajeev Satav had said that Rahul should take up the post. Similar demands have been made by few AICC general secretaries, including Digvijay Singh.

After Sonia was elected chairperson of the Congress in Parliament, senior leader Kamal Nath had emerged as the frontrunner for the post. “The political leader of the party has to be the face of a political party,” a senior leader said.

He appeared to suggest that lack of a political leader at the helm of the UPA government was one of the reasons for the humiliating defeat of the Congress in the Lok Sabha elections.

Besides poor communication, price rise, hike in fuel prices, charges of corruption and question mark on governance issues were the key reasons for the defeat of the Congress.

Sonia has already admitted that the Congress failed to adequately gauge the widespread anger against the UPA government. “The UPA performance was second to none. But we were surprised by the scale of the defeat,” AICC spokesperson Shashi Tharoor said.

Since the declaration of results of the Lok Sabha elections on May 16, the Congress President and vice-president have been meeting workers and leaders everyday to understand the reasons for the defeat, he said. “They are getting a good sense of what had gone wrong,” Tharoor said.

The Congress Working Committee had authorised the party chief to undertake “whatever steps necessary” to revamp the party organisation at all levels.