THE stepping aside of the Gandhi family from the leadership role in the Congress following its debacle in the Lok Sabha elections is not a solution, a senior party leader said on Friday, hinting that other leaders may not be able to hold the party together.

 

Four-time MLA Marri Shashidhar Reddy said the Gandhi family has been the “binding force” for the party, keeping it intact, amid critics calling for its members to make way for others to lead after the crushing defeat. “So, that (Gandhi family members resigning from posts) is not something which provides a solution,” Reddy, also former vice-chairman of National Disaster Management Authority, told PTI. “The Gandhi family is not just individuals. The family has been the binding factor, it evolved like this over the decades, and in between we had breaks (without Gandhi family members at the helm), the results have not been good,” he said.

 

“Now also (in Lok Sabha elections), expectations have been belied, things this time did not work out but it cannot said that somebody else would have done a better job”, the son of former Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister M Channa Reddy said.

 

Asked if he thought a member of the Gandhi family is a good bet to hold the party together, he said: “Yes, absolutely”.

“Another person may not be able to hold the party together the way (the Gandhi family did),” he claimed. In a big country like India, the outreach and appeal of any other individual leader in the party is limited, according to him. “You need a leader to reach out to the people. And that kind of an appeal to reach to people is something which, all other leaders...Limited kind of appeal or reach,” he said.