The recent state losses have again revived criticism of the Gandhi family
New Delhi:
The Congress has categorically denied that the Gandhis – Sonia Gandhi, Rahul Gandhi and Priyanka Gandhi Vadra – are going to resign at its top decision-making body, Congress Working Committee or CWC, meeting today.
“The news story of alleged resignations being based on unnamed sources is completely unfair and incorrect,” Congress spokesperson Randeep Surjewala said today evening.
The party has called a CWC meeting at 4 pm today, three days after it faced a wipe-out in polls held in 5 states.
The Congress’s humiliating 0/5 score in the just concluded state elections has again revived criticism of the Gandhi family and given impetus to calls for a complete overhaul and a leadership change by number of party leaders – a demand that was so far confined to the “G-23” or group of 23 “dissenters” who had written to Sonia Gandhi two years ago.
The party lost Punjab, one of the last major states under its control, to the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), and failed to put up a strong fight in three other states where it had hoped for a comeback – Uttarakhand, Goa and Manipur.
In Uttar Pradesh, where the campaign was led by Priyanka Gandhi Vadra, the Congress got just 2 seats out of 403, a loss of 5 over the last polls. The party got just 2.4 per cent of the vote.
Senior Congress leader Shashi Tharoor, a member of the G-23, on Thursday, had tweeted the party could not avoid change.
Some of the dissidents met at veteran leader Ghulam Nabi Azad’s home on Friday evening and reportedly discussed the way forward, expressing dismay at the Congress leadership for not taking any corrective steps to revive the party.
However, Gandhi family loyalists have defended the leadership. In an interview with NDTV, the party’s key troubleshooter DK Shivakumar on Friday said the Congress cannot be united without its first family and it was “impossible” for it to survive without them.