While several top leaders of Congress like Ashok Gehlot and Shashi Tharoor seem to be ready to contest, chorus is growing louder in the party for Rahul Gandhi’s elevation to the top post with nearly a dozen state units pushing for it amid uncertainty and suspense persisted over whether he would take on the mantle.
The Congress units in Goa, Odisha, Jharkhand and Haryana on Tuesday passed resolutions backing Rahul Gandhi for the post of party president, joining at least eight other Pradesh Congress Committees (PCCs) which have rooted for him.
Besides these, party units in Rajasthan, Chhattisgarh, Gujarat, Tamil Nadu, Bihar, Maharashtra, and Jammu Kashmir units of the party have passed similar resolutions.
Rajasthan Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot on Tuesday gave clear signals to Congress MLAs in the state that he has made up his mind to contest for the post of party president if Rahul Gandhi does not contest.
This came four days after Rajasthan Pradesh Congress Committee unanimously passed a resolution for making Rahul Gandhi the party’s national president and on the day party leadership indicated that the members of the Gandhi family, including interim party chief Sonia Gandhi, are unlikely to name any official candidate.
Sources on Tuesday said the Gandhi family is unlikely to sign on the nomination papers of any candidate as proposers to show that they would remain neutral and that there is no official candidate.
General Secretary KC Venugopal on Tuesday that it’s up to Rahul Gandhi to decide whether he will contest the election for the party president post, adding that everything will be clear within a week.
Venugopal, who met interim party chief Sonia Gandhi on Tuesday, said, “I had some pending work of the party so I came to meet her.” Venugopal also said that every party worker wants Rahul Gandhi to be the next Congress President.
Rahul Gandhi and Priyanka Gandhi Vadra do not devote enough time and importance to the Congress party and its leaders, president of the party’s Himachal Pradesh unit Pratibha Singh has said, according to a video posted online.
“I feel there is a little generation gap. What our seniors used to do, now the youngsters don’t do that. What Sonia-ji, Indira-ji or Rajiv-ji used to do, today’s generation don’t do that,” Singh told ThePrint in an interview in Hindi and English.
However, the Congress leader later claimed that she was misquoted and urged the website to take down the interview. “An interview published by @ThePrintIndia wrongly quotes my statements. I never made any statement disparaging the Congress leadership and the Gandhi family. The interviewer has taken creative liberties with my statements, misquoted throughout the interview,” Singh said in a tweet.
With inputs from News18
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