Sonia wants old guard PC, Azad as deputies once Rahul is made Congress president
Congress president Sonia Gandhi has made up her mind to install two senior leaders as the party’s vice presidents, if and when her 47-year-old son, Rahul Gandhi, currently her deputy, replaces her as the Congress president. In information available exclusively to The Sunday Guardian, Sonia Gandhi is considering the names of Ghulam Nabi Azad and P. Chidambaram as the two likely vice presidents. This could pose a major impediment to Rahul Gandhi’s effort to wrest control from the old guard of the Congress ahead of the general elections in 2019.
Reliable sources told this reporter that Sonia Gandhi is “very annoyed” with the way Rahul’s meeting with Chi- na’s envoy Luo Zhaohui was handled by Rahul’s “young” team, which the Gandhi scion wants to concentrate power in. A spokesperson’s faux pas on 10 July—he first denied the meeting as fake news “planted” by “bhakt channels” and then admitted that the meeting indeed took place—has convinced Sonia Gandhi that older and more experienced leaders should continue to play a pivotal role in managing the Congress’ communication and election strategies.
“Rahul Gandhi wants to promote the ‘young’ leaders but Sonia Gandhi is not willing. She cited the mishandling of the Rahul-Zhaohui meeting as an example of the recklessness that can take place under an all ‘young’ team, as they do not have the experience... She wants the experienced, older leaders to be brought back into focus and play a key role in the 2019 elections and the Assembly elections in Gujarat, Karnataka, Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh ahead of it. Her recommendation is that P. Chidambaram and Ghulam Nabi Azad should be made the vice presidents of the party, when Rahul takes over the reins from her,” a top Congress source told this reporter.
The source added that Rahul’s sister Priyanka GandhiVadra, who played a key role in the Congress-Samajwadi Party pre-poll alliance in Uttar Pradesh, much against Rahul’s wishes, is also on the “same page with Sonia Gandhi”. “Priyanka too thinks that letting all the ‘young’ Turks take control of the decision- making is not a wise idea. She has seconded