“I AM a full-time and hands-on Congress President,” Sonia Gandhi asserted at the crucial Congress Working Committee (CWC) meeting on Saturday, in a clear message to the G23 leaders, some of whom have raised issues regarding lack of leadership and absence of an elected party chief. During her address at the party’s highest decision-making body, Gandhi said the revival of the party can only happen with “unity, self-control, discipline and by keeping the party’s interests paramount”. In a mild reprimand to those G23 leaders who have been airing their criticism of the party in the media, the Congress chief said she has always appreciated frankness and “there is no need to speak to me through the media”. “So, let us all have a free and honest discussion. But what should get communicated outside the four walls of this room is the collective decision of the CWC,” she said in her opening remarks at the meeting. Her remarks came after senior Congress leader Kapil Sibal had recently said that at the moment, there was no President in the party, so it was not known who was taking decisions.

 

Election of the new Congress President will be held between August 21 and September 20 next year, the party announced on Saturday after the crucial meeting of its working committee which approved the schedule for organisational polls at various levels. The top decision-making body of the Congress also finalised the schedule for elections to all party positions from the block to national level starting April 16, a demand raised by the G-23 in their letter to Sonia Gandhi last year seeking organisational overhaul.

 

The schedule for organisational polls was welcomed by senior leaders and G-23 members Ghulam Nabi Azad, Anand Sharma and Mukul Wasnik present at the CWC meeting. The CWC, which was held physically after a gap of 18 months due to the COVID situation, also passed three resolutions on the political situation in the country, the economic situation due to high inflation and price rise, and another on the acute agrarian crisis and diabolical attack on farmers. AICC General Secretaries K C Venugopal and Randeep Surjewala announced the election schedule which includes a massive membership drive for the polls starting from November 1 that will go on till March 31, 2022. They also stated that election of PCC Presidents, Vice Presidents, Treasurers, PCC executives and AICC members by PCC general body will be held between July 21-August 20. Venugopal also announced that election of CWC members and other bodies by AICC members will take place at a plenary session dates, for which will be announced later. He also said that the Congress will undertake a mass agitational programme across the country over rising prices from November 14 to 29. Former Congress chief Rahul Gandhi, General Secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra, three Congress Chief Ministers among others, attended the meeting, the first such physical meet of the CWC since the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic.