New Delhi: The Congress Working Committee meeting on Sunday, March 13, ended with the party taking the decision to organise a chintan shivir or brainstorming session immediately after the extended budget session of the parliament ends on April 8.
The CWC meeting was convened to discuss electoral failures of the grand old party in the recently-concluded assembly elections. In the run-up to polls, the Congress was hoping to secure a majority in Goa, Uttarakhand, Punjab and Manipur, where it is among the two biggest parties.
Like in previous CWC meetings, Sonia Gandhi offered to step aside from a leadership role if the party asked for it. Rahul Gandhi and Priyanka Gandhi Vadra also offered to take a backseat.
“If there is going to be a problem with the three of us, we are willing to make any sacrifice. We are very clear that the party comes first and nobody is bigger than the party,” she reportedly said.
However, the CWC unanimously passed a resolution to let Sonia Gandhi continue in her position of interim president of the party until organisational elections take place in August, 2022. In the meantime, the CWC requested Sonia Gandhi to “lead from the front, address organisational weaknesses, and effect necessary and comprehensive organisational changes in order to take on political challenges.”
CWC, the party’s top-decision making body, therefore ensured that there was no immediate change in leadership roles, despite demand from various leaders within the organisation that the Gandhi family should step aside for other leaders to step up.
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However, with no one in the party ready to openly challenge the Gandhis and put their full might in the power struggle, the CWC’s resolution to let Sonia Gandhi continue appears to be a predetermined outcome of the meeting.
Chief spokesperson of the party Randeep Surjewala said that multiple leaders in the meeting openly voiced problems in the party’s electoral campaign and how the party should course-correct. However, the exercise only appears to be repetitive, given the party has shown no signs of revival despite similar CWC meetings over the last few years.
The Indian Express reported that G-23 leaders, the rebels who have made their preference for a change in leadership clear, spoke about many mistakes that the party committed in the run-up to the assembly elections.
Ghulam Nabi Azad, for one, felt that removal of Amarinder Singh as the Punjab chief minister only four months before the elections was a mistake. Sonia Gandhi, too, agreed that the decision was unnecessarily delayed. Azad reportedly also said that former Uttarakhand chief minister Harish Rawat should have been freed from his organisational responsibility in Punjab so that he could concentrate on his home state.
Other leaders like Digvijaya Singh, Mukul Wasnik, and K.H. Muniyappa said that Rahul Gandhi, who has been taking most decisions, should make himself more accessible for party leaders. Azad wanted a future president who is “accessible, acceptable, and accountable”.
Anand Sharma, too, said that when leaders disagree with the central leadership, it should be taken as positive criticism, not as rebellion. He held that the practice of appointing “working presidents” should be stopped as it gives a wrong impression to the party workers. He also said that only ideologically-committed Congress leaders should be given important positions, not those who have come from outside, and that the party should stop “flirting with soft Hindutva”.
Leaders also felt that the Aam Aadmi Party is capturing much of the Congress’ space in the opposition, with Sharma speaking about Kejriwal making inroads in his poll-bound home state, Himachal Pradesh.
Ajay Maken, who was a part of the screening committee in Punjab said that state Congress chief Navjot Singh Sidhu’s constant snipes at Congress and chief minister Charanjit Singh Channi damaged the party’s prospects in the elections.
Priyanka Gandhi spoke about the lack of enthusiasm of certain senior leaders in Uttar Pradesh’s electoral-run, while talking about many senior leaders who did not turn up to campaign despite being invited.
All state-incharges and observers of the states that went to polls presented their reports to highlight what went wrong and what should be corrected.