Sonia Gandhi deputes 5-member team to visit riot-affected areas, submit detailed report

Taking the lead from Opposition ranks on the issue of Delhi violence, Sonia Gandhi on Friday deputed a five-member team to visit the riot-affected areas in northeast Delhi, a decision coming back to back after her taking a party delegation to President Ram Nath Kovind on Thursday and CWC meeting on Wednesday on the issue of communal conflagration in the national capital.

The delegation comprising of AICC general secretary Mukul Wasnik, party in-charge Delhi Shaktisinh Gohil, Haryana Congress chief Kumari Selja, former MP Tariq Anwar, a veteran politician from Bihar and Mahila Congress chief Sushmita Dev, will visit the riot-affected areas in the national capital and assess the situation arising out the communal violence and its after-effects.

Members in the delegation are very senior leaders of Congress party.

The team members have been asked to submit a detailed report to the Congress president immediately.

Like her decision to take Congress delegation to Kovind on Thursday, Congress is again the first from the Opposition to set up a party panel to carry out on spot visit of the riot regions.

Passing a resolution in another CWC meeting earlier on January 12, Sonia-led Congress demanded from the government to withdraw CAA and stop the process of NPR.

The active role on the issue being played by Sonia Gandhi, the interim Congress President comes less than two months before when the party is toying with the idea of having an AICC plenary in April to elect a new chief to permanently put to rest the issue of Presidency in Congress ever since Rahul Gandhi resigned last year, owning moral responsibility for the 2019 Lok Sabha poll debacle.

Though Rahul Gandhi had clearly told party leaders to elect a new chief outside Nehru-Gandhi family, the Congress veterans prevailed upon its longest serving chief Sonia Gandhi to take the mantle again after a break of less than two years in August 2019.

Sonia Gandhi had resigned from the post in December 2017, paving the way for Rahul Gandhi to take over as the President, who quit the chief’s post officially in July 2019 after general election results, which ensured a second successive rout for Congress.

As the buzz of plenary gains ground, so does the speculation about Rahul Gandhi again staging a comeback as party chief. However indications from what all Rahul has said so far reflect a contrarian view as he does not seem to be very keen for coming back in the same role again at least for the time being.

The old guard in the party is quite happy at electoral outcomes for the Congress juxtaposing to what has happened to BJP in states like Maharhashtra, Haryana, Jharkhannd and now Delhi, though it has not much to rejoice for itself other than celebrating the decline in BJP’s numbers.

While BJP lost its oldest ally - Shiv Sena in Maharashtra - paving the way for formation of a Sena-NCP-Congress government, its numbers came down in Haryana (both states went to polls in October last year), the saffron party lost its government in Jharkhand (December 2019) and then had to bite dust at the hands of AAP in Delhi again (February 2020).

In Maharshtra and Jharkhand Congress is part of the government and in Haryana, the party staged a comeback substantially increasing its numbers, though in Delhi it was from a zero to zero journey for Congress. Sonia has been at the helm of the Congress affairs during all these elections.