We will force Rahul Gandhi to be party chief again: Kharge | India News
[ad_1]
NEW DELHI: With Congress appearing no closer to solving its leadership conundrum as its working committee sits down on Sunday to firm up its election schedule for the presidential polls, party veteran Mallikarjun Kharge said Congress will “force” Rahul Gandhi to helm the party again.
Battling defections and sharp criticism from within and outside, Kharge’s remarks came amid indications that Rajasthan CM Ashok Gehlot remained unwilling to take on the responsibility, leaving the party grappling with the ‘If-Not-Rahul-Then-Who’ question.
While his comments appeared to validate criticism by dissidents and political opponents that the excitement ginned up around the internal polls is a farce and the party will eventually have only someone from among the Gandhis at the helm if they fail to find an ultra-loyalist proxy, Kharge seemed unfazed.
He, like other Congress managers, insisted that there is no leader in Congress to match Rahul’s pan-India appeal, nor his ability to mount an attack on the saffron party and the Narendra Modi-led BJP government.
“Also, there is nobody else within the party who is acceptable to all. We stand behind Rahul ji. So, we will ask him, we will request him and we will force him,” Kharge said, adding that party leaders had similarly urged Congress president Sonia Gandhi to take on the mantle of Congress in 1996, to join the party and work for it, and that she had eventually given in to the leaders’ entreaties.
While Sunday’s CWC will come no closer to solving the leadership debate that has confounded the party ever since Rahul Gandhi stepped down after the 2019 Lok Sabha debacle, the meeting is expected to witness high drama, since rebel leader Anand Sharmaback in the national capital after his brief visit to home-state of Himachal Pradesh, is likely to join the deliberations.
Sharma, who spent an hour with his renegade former colleague Ghulam Nabi Azad on Saturday evening, was tightlipped about what transpired between the duo. However, he told TOI that the issues flagged by the G-23 in their original letter to Congress were “still alive” and that if they had been accepted by the party in the right spirit, things would not have come to such a pass.
Congress managers, on their part, said they expect the Sunday huddle to be a tight affair with nothing but firming up of the election schedule on the official agenda. The virtual meeting, which party chief Sonia Gandhi, Rahul and Priyanka Gandhi Vadra will also join, is expected to pitch for completing the election process by mid-October, instead of September 20, when the party had originally said it will install a new Congress president.
Battling defections and sharp criticism from within and outside, Kharge’s remarks came amid indications that Rajasthan CM Ashok Gehlot remained unwilling to take on the responsibility, leaving the party grappling with the ‘If-Not-Rahul-Then-Who’ question.
While his comments appeared to validate criticism by dissidents and political opponents that the excitement ginned up around the internal polls is a farce and the party will eventually have only someone from among the Gandhis at the helm if they fail to find an ultra-loyalist proxy, Kharge seemed unfazed.
He, like other Congress managers, insisted that there is no leader in Congress to match Rahul’s pan-India appeal, nor his ability to mount an attack on the saffron party and the Narendra Modi-led BJP government.
“Also, there is nobody else within the party who is acceptable to all. We stand behind Rahul ji. So, we will ask him, we will request him and we will force him,” Kharge said, adding that party leaders had similarly urged Congress president Sonia Gandhi to take on the mantle of Congress in 1996, to join the party and work for it, and that she had eventually given in to the leaders’ entreaties.
While Sunday’s CWC will come no closer to solving the leadership debate that has confounded the party ever since Rahul Gandhi stepped down after the 2019 Lok Sabha debacle, the meeting is expected to witness high drama, since rebel leader Anand Sharmaback in the national capital after his brief visit to home-state of Himachal Pradesh, is likely to join the deliberations.
Sharma, who spent an hour with his renegade former colleague Ghulam Nabi Azad on Saturday evening, was tightlipped about what transpired between the duo. However, he told TOI that the issues flagged by the G-23 in their original letter to Congress were “still alive” and that if they had been accepted by the party in the right spirit, things would not have come to such a pass.
Congress managers, on their part, said they expect the Sunday huddle to be a tight affair with nothing but firming up of the election schedule on the official agenda. The virtual meeting, which party chief Sonia Gandhi, Rahul and Priyanka Gandhi Vadra will also join, is expected to pitch for completing the election process by mid-October, instead of September 20, when the party had originally said it will install a new Congress president.
[ad_2]
Source link
