STATE TIMES NEWS
New Delhi: The Congress Working Committee will meet on Sunday to discuss the outcome of the assembly elections, even as the opposition party reeling from the latest electoral debacle refuted reports that the Gandhi family members will resign from all organisational posts.
Sources said Congress president Sonia Gandhi will chair the meeting of the party’s top decision-making body at its headquarters here at 4 PM on Sunday.
The Congress lost Punjab to the AAP and could not wrest any of the four other states – Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Goa and Manipur – from the BJP.
While Sonia Gandhi has not been actively campaigning for some time, Rahul Gandhi has been the star campaigner for the Congress besides Priyanka Gandhi, with the brother-sister duo also playing a major role in key decisions of the party.
Despite a high-pitched campaign led by AICC general secretary in-charge of Uttar Pradesh Priyanka Gandhi Vadra, the Congress could manage to win only two of the 403 assembly seats with the vote share plummeting to a meagre 2.33 percent and most of its candidates losing security deposits.
Rahul Gandhi had resigned as Congress president after the party suffered its second consecutive defeat in general elections in 2019. Sonia Gandhi who took over the reins of the party again as interim president had also offered to quit in August 2020 after an open revolt by a section of leaders, referred to as G-23, but the CWC had urged her to continue.
Sunday’s CWC meeting is likely to see some fireworks as the G-23 dissident leaders, who have questioned the leadership and pressed for organisation overhaul, have indicated that these issues will be raised again.
However, party spokesman Randeep Surjewala on Sunday dismissed as “wrong and mischievous” reports claiming that the Gandhi family members will resign from all party positions, thus ruling out any major tectonic shift in the party.
The reports of alleged resignations are unfair, mischievous and incorrect, he said on Twitter.
“It is unfair for a TV channel to carry such unsubstantiated propaganda stories emanating from imaginary sources at the instance of ruling BJP,” Surjewala said.
Congress whip in Lok Sabha Manickam Tagore said, “All those rumourmongers will have egg on their faces tomorrow.”
Party president Sonia Gandhi has, meanwhile, convened a meeting of the party’s parliamentary strategy group at her residence on Sunday morning to discuss plans for the remainder of the budget session.
The second part of the budget session starts on Monday after a recess.
Gandhi is also the chairperson of the Congress Parliamentary
The G-23 leaders had suggested corrective measures after the previous round of assembly polls, when the Congress lost Puducherry and failed to make a mark in Kerala, Assam and West Bengal, but there had been little movement on that front.
These leaders had met on Friday evening at the residence of senior leader Ghulam Nabi Azad to evolve their strategy ahead of the crucial CWC meeting.