Family ready to ‘step back’, says Sonia; stunned Congress junks offer

NEW DELHI: In a stunning development that appeared to be in response to the restiveness in Congress following its debacle in the state polls, party president Sonia Gandhi on Sunday told the Congress Working Committee “we three” (she, Rahul and Priyanka Gandhi Vadra) are ready to “step back” if it is felt the leadership lacks steadiness, shocking the gathering of elite party members and eliciting a unanimous chorus rejecting the offer.
Sources said the entire gathering, including Ghulam Nabi Azad — a leading light of the ‘rebel G-23’ — said “no” and urged Sonia to continue.
Before the meeting, Rajasthan CM Ashok Gehlot and some others like Karnataka Congress chief D K Shivakumar as well as a throng of party workers outside the AICC office demanded Rahul Gandhi should take up the top post again.
Demand for rejig in the party brass has been a recurring theme in Congress and CWC meetings, but remains to be met as organisational elections, which will conclude with the election of a new chief, are scheduled for September.
At the start of Sunday’s brainstorming on electoral losses that went on for around four hours, Sonia took the stage where she, according to sources, said, “For me the Indian National Congress is important. We are ready to make any sacrifices. If it is felt that the Gandhi family is not able to do it, then we three are ready to step back.”
To this, Azad told Sonia “we have never questioned your leadership, but only flagged the flaws in the party management”.
A statement released after the meeting said, “The CWC reaffirmed faith in the leadership of Sonia Gandhi and requested her to lead from the front, address the organisational weaknesses, effect necessary and comprehensive organisational changes in order to take on the political challenges.” It also expressed concern over the poll debacle.
The discussions witnessed critical remarks from members. Azad brought up the issue of organizational management that has been a key concern with the dissenting bloc. He spoke pointedly that “decision making should be collective” — an unambiguous reference to the G-23 charge that party was being managed in an opaque manner by a small group of inexperienced leaders while veterans were not being consulted. Another G-23 leader Anand Sharma lamented that “we” are falsely defamed as rebels. He said there should be more communication in the party and CWC meetings.
The G-23 also came in for a rebuke from party veteran Digvijaya Singh who said that concerns the group has should be addressed and resolved on the party forum rather than in public, which tends to harm the party.
During the discussion on poll debacle, Rahul Gandhi said regional and new parties are cutting into Congress votes in what appeared to be an unnamed reference to AAP in Goa. While Congress leaders including Rahul stressed the need to strengthen the party and approach the elections with a strategy and agenda, the interesting aspect came during the discussions on Punjab where Congress was swept away from power by AAP, and in Uttarakhand, Goa and Manipur, where it fell way short of posting a challenge to the ruling BJP.
Azad punched holes in the party’s approach in Punjab, criticising that AICC general secretary Harish Rawat continued with his Punjab charge right till the elections even when he knew that he had to play a role in Uttarakhand. He said the state’s manager should have been changed a good one and half years earlier. He also questioned the decision to remove Amarinder as CM midstream, arguing that if he was to be replaced, it should have been done much earlier.
At this point, sources said, Rahul interjected to ask what could the party do when 68 MLAs demanded that Singh be removed, and surveys also showed a mere 2% support for Singh’s leadership.
As demanded by many in the CWC, Congress is likely to hold a ‘chintan shivir (brainstorming session)’ after the parliament session.
In her report, Priyanka said the party did not have an organisation in UP and training camps were held to create it. She said while the party did not expect to win too many seats as there was no social bloc with the party, the polarisation only made it difficult.
Punjab in-charge Chaudhary mentioned that behaviour of state unit chief Navjot Singh Sidhu hurt the Congress, sources said.
Uttarakhand in-charge Yadav conceded that the party failed to make a correct assessment of the ground situation and the impact of beneficiary schemes.