Amid continuing uncertainty over Rahul Gandhi’s keenness to lead the party as Congress chief, the party may decide to advance its organizational elections and kickstart the nomination process by August 20 and the withdrawal of nomination by September 3.
A meeting of the Congress Working Committee is likely soon and a decision on advancing the elections of the Congress President are expected to be formalized then. Sources said a proposal to file nominations between August 20 and 27, withdraw candidature by September 3, and to hold elections, if needed, on September 5, is likely to be put before the working committee for its approval.
Originally, Congress had said the election of the party president would be completed by September 20, when the five-year term of the earlier president ends.
Even as election day looms, the question of who should lead the party continues to confound Congress’s rank and file, especially since Gandhi has maintained that he remains unwilling to don the mantel of party chief.
With Rahul’s persistent reluctance to lead, party leaders have not ruled out the possibility of incumbent interim chief Sonia Gandhi being re-elected as party president.
Rahul has been resisting pressure from unanimous requests voiced at previous meetings of the CWCs that he become party chief again. At a recent huddle of the Congress MPs, the former Congress chief who resigned as president on the back of Congress’ poor performance in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, said he is happy being a “foot soldier of the party” who amplifies Congress’ ideological message not only to strengthen the Indian democracy, but also to raise people’s issues of rising prices and growing unemployment, and to fight against the alleged “assault” on India’s institutional at the hands of the Narendra Modi government.
The move to advance the polls is also synonymous with the party’s announcement of the 150-day and 3500kilometer-long ‘Bharat JodoYatra’ from Kanyakumari to Kashmir from September 7.Many within the party have said starting the mass movement after settling the vexed issued of leadership is likely to work to the party’s advantage, especially since Congress has not undertaken a nationwide mass movement of this stature. Though Rahul is known to have said that the Yatra should not centre around him and should be built from the ground up as a mass movement, few in the party are seen as capable of undertaking an exercise this long and exhaustive, or carrying the weight Rahul can, in taking on the Modi-led BJP government.
News Mania Desk
