Sonia to remain Congress chief as party defers polls
Sonia Gandhi will remain the Congress president for at least another three months with the party’s Working Committee on Monday, deciding against holding organisational polls by June due to the surging second wave of the Covid-19 pandemic, a move that was accepted unanimously.
Rajasthan chief minister Ashok Gehlot was the first to demand that the polls be deferred.
Then, Congress general secretaries Randeep Surjewala and KC Venugopal said that restrictions on physical gathering and movement meant that it made sense to defer the polls for two to three months.
The move was not opposed by any of the members of the so-called G23 present at the meeting, people present at the meeting said.
This is a group of Congress leaders that wrote to Sonia Gandhi in August 2020, seeking a change in how the party works, and organisational elections. Ghulam Nabi Azad, Anand Sharma and Mukul Wasnik, signatories to that letter were present at the meeting and supported the decision to defer the polls.
Gandhi took charge of the party in 2019 when Rahul Gandhi resigned following the Congress’ debacle in that year’s national elections. Since then, both she, as well as several of Rahul Gandhi’s loyalists have pushed for his return to the post -- but Rahul Gandhi himself appears reluctant to do so. To be sure, members of the G-23 have so far not talked about possible candidates for the polls.
CWC also lashed out at the Narendra Modi government’s handling of the pandemic and said “the inhumane crisis of non-availability of oxygen, hospital beds, Remdesivir, Ivermectin , Tocilizumab, and vaccines reflects the criminal failure of the central government.”
It termed the second wave “a direct consequence of the Modi government’s indifference, insensitivity and incompetence.” It also dubbed the Centre’s vaccination pricing policy as “opaque and discriminatory” and claimed that “the mandatory online registration without a walk-in option will exclude — and may have already excluded —millions of our citizens, particularly those in rural areas and those belonging to the weaker sections of society.”
In the meeting, Gandhi asked the CWC to deliberate on the internal polls.
Madhusudan Mistry, chairman of the Congress Election Authority proposed that the polls could be held in the last week of June but nearly all leaders felt it would be impossible to do this till Covid subsides.
After the Congress chief ministers spoke about the situation of the pandemic in their states, the CWC passed a resolution saying, the Covid19 second wave is “nothing short of a grave calamity” and the direct result of the central government’s “willful disregard of scientific advice, its premature declaration of victory over the pandemic and its unwillingness and inability to plan in advance.”
At the CWC meet, the party also said that while vaccine supplies are grossly insufficient, the Centre has “passed on the financial responsibility for vaccinating the 18-44 year population to the state governments, which are already facing severe financial stress.”
THE MOVE TO POSTPONE THE POLLS WAS NOT OPPOSED BY ANY OF THE MEMBERS OF THE SO-CALLED G23 THE A GROUP THAT WROTE TO SONIA GANDHI SEEKING A CHANGE IN HOW THE PARTY WORKS PRESENT AT THE MEETING, PEOPLE PRESENT AT THE MEET SAID