Two days after the Congress Working Committee ‘unanimously rejected’ party President Rahul Gandhi’s offer to reign, it appears that the leader is unlikely to change his mind about stepping down. Rahul Gandhi met with Congress leaders KC Venugopal and Ahmed Patel on Monday and conveyed that the party would have to find a new President as he would not give into pressure to continue in the top post.
Telegraph’s Sanjay K Jha also reported that Rahul Gandhi had insisted that the new President should be from outside the Congress’ first family, ruling out the idea of his mother Sonia Gandhi and sister Priyanka Vadra taking over. NDTV areported that despite their initial reluctance regarding his resignation, Sonia and Priyanka later agreed with Rahul. They both were of the opinion that Congress needed ‘a change of guard and a total reset’.
One leader who was present at Saturday’s CWC meeting and quoted by Telegraph stated that Rahul had, however, made it clear that he would not be abandoning the party. “The essence of his argument, however, got lost in the concerns over his resignation. He said I am not going anywhere; I am going to fight harder. If you believe in my leadership, I don’t need any post to prove myself,” said the leader, who added that Rahul had said he would carry on with intense political campaigning while a new party chief looked after the organisation’s affairs.