Sonia stays in charge of Cong after acrimonious CWC meet

Dissent letter-writers face flak from colleagues; CWC authorises Sonia to make organisational changes

NEWDELHI: The Congress Working Committee (CWC) on Monday resolved that Sonia Gandhi will continue as party president until an All India Congress Committee (AICC) session is convened, rejecting the concerns raised by 23 Congress leaders who criticised the functioning of the party and asked for structural changes in a controversial letter whose contents became public last week.

The CWC — held in the backdrop of the first-ever show of dissent by prominent leaders against the party’s first family — authorised Sonia Gandhi to effect any necessary organisational changes, reaffirmed its faith in both Sonia and former president Rahul Gandhi.

There was sharp criticism of those who signed the letter at the party’s highest decision-making body, which met for seven hours on Monday and witnessed stormy exchanges between the leaders.The discussion focused largely on the timing of the letter, the intent behind it, and its leak; rather than on its contents.

Rahul Gandhi led the attack on the signatories by saying it came when the Congress was fighting political battles in Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan, and Sonia Gandhi was in hospital. The CWC, in its formal resolution, also emphasised that issues must be raised within party forums in

the interest of “propriety and discipline”, and not “through the media or in public fora”.

Only four of the 23 leaders who signed the letter are CWC members, which made them eligible to attend the meeting — Ghulam Nabi Azad, Anand Sharma, Mukul Wasnik and Jitin Prasada. Attacked for criticising the leadership, the dissidents expressed their support for Sonia and Rahul Gandhi, claimed that the letter was not intended to question the leadership of the Nehru-Gandhi family, and it had been “misconstrued”, but asserted that it had been written within the limits of a democratic party.

According to people familiar with the contents of the letter, sent on August 7, a set of leaders — which also included Kapil Sibal, Shashi Tharoor, Manish Tewari, Bhupinder Singh Hooda, and Milind Deora, among others — criticised the lack of honest introspection after electoral defeats, and asked for a full-time, effective, “active” and “visible” president; elections at all levels in the party (including the CWC); establishing an institutional leadership model to collectively guide the party; and a national coalition with like-minded parties, among other steps.

HT has not seen a copy of the letter.

Monday’s CWC resolution, which is the final word in the party for now, after enumerating the challenges facing the country, stated that Sonia and Rahul Gandhi are “two voices that have been at the forefront of exposing the government’s inadequate responses, divisive politics and audacious propaganda” and that the two have “inspired a generation of Indians”; it pledged to “strengthen” their hands “in every possible way”; and asserted that “no one will be or can be permitted to undermine or weaken the party and its leadership at this juncture”.

According to several leaders present in the meeting who HT spoke to, the proceedings began with Sonia Gandhi reiterating her decision to step down, as she had noted in a letter to party general secretary (organisation) KC Venugopal last week. She took over as interim chief last August, after Rahul Gandhi resigned after the Congress defeat in the Lok Sabha elections. “In the interest of the party, I ask CWC to begin deliberations to put in place the process of transition to relieve me of my duties,’’ she wrote in the letter.

There was, however, overwhelming support for Sonia and Rahul Gandhi — among the 52 members who spoke, a majority either wanted Sonia to continue or Rahul to take over, or the former to continue till the latter took over.

According to one person at the meeting, Sonia Gandhi directly addressed Azad, the senior-most leader among the letter signatories, “You know me so well, Azad sahib. How could you think that I will take any decision on the leadership issue without consulting party leaders? You could always come and meet me. I retired long ago. I don’t want to hang on to this chair. So, what’s the motive of this letter?”

Rahul Gandhi, too, was critical of the timing of the letter, and referred to the fact that the party was engaged in political battles when it was written (in Rajasthan, it was dealing with an intraparty rebellion led by Sachin Pilot, while in Madhya Pradesh, it faces a set of crucial bypolls), and that Sonia Gandhi was then in the hospital.

According to a second person who participated in the meeting, referring to his mother, Sonia, Rahul said, “She didn’t want to be Congress president, and I didn’t want her to be because of her health, and yet you all insisted that she become [the president]. Why then do you have a problem with her? Challenging her authority and talking about the collective leadership was an insult to her.”

Rahul was incorrectly reported on Monday morning to have alleged that the letter-writers were in collusion with the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), leading to Sibal putting out a tweet defending his commitment to the party. This, in turn, led to Gandhi calling and speaking to Sibal to clarify he had never made such a remark — which, then, saw Sibal withdraw his tweet.