NEW DELHI: At the Congress Working Committee meeting on Monday, Rahul Gandhi accused “some leaders” of being in cahoots with the BJP in writing the letter on their grievances, after which Ghulam Nabi Azad and Kapil Sibal hit back at him.
Rahul addressed the CWC and criticised the letter by some leaders saying it’s the CWC platform where leaders discuss grievances not in the media. Rahul also questioned the timing of the letter which was sent when Sonia was in the hospital recuperating from a recent illness.
While Azad read out the letter of pro-reform leaders at the CWC meeting saying he would quit if found colluding with the BJP, Sibal, who is not in the CWC, tweeted, “Rahul Gandhi says we are colluding with BJP. Succeeded in Rajasthan High Court defending the Congress Party, succeeded only defending party in Manipur to bring down BJP Government. In the last 30 years I’ve have never made a statement in favour of BJP on any issue. Yet we are colluding with the BJP!”
Earlier, interim Congress president Sonia Gandhi made an offer to be relieved as interim party president in her opening remarks at the working committee meeting which started in the backdrop of a section of leaders asking for complete overhaul of the organisation and a visible and full-time president.
“I have told KC Venugopal in my letter that I want to be relieved and the process to find a new party president be started,” Sonia told the CWC with former prime minister Manmohan Singh being the first leader at the CWC to ask her to stay.
Former defence minister AK Antony also urged Sonia to rethink and continue. Both Singh and Antony are learnt to have made critical remarks about the letter signed by some 20 party leaders, including ex-ministers Ghulam Nabi Azad, Anand Sharma, Kapil Sibal, Mukul Wasnik and former Haryana CM BS Hooda, seeking collective decision making with Gandhis integral to it.
Sonia is learnt to have named Azad thrice in her intervention while offering to quit the post of interim chief she accepted last year on August 10 when the CWC urged her to accept the role after her son and former chief Rahul Gandhi resigned taking responsibility for the party’s Lok Sabha debacle.
In making the offer of resignation, Sonia repeated her 1999 act when faced with questions about her foreign origin she resigned, but the CWC unanimously rejected the move prevailing on her to stay.
At that time Sharad Pawar, then leader of opposition in Lok Sabha, with CWC colleagues PA Sangma and Tariq Anwar raised questions on Sonia’s origin to ensure she couldn’t become party PM face in the 1999 general election.
Pawar had to quit the Congress to form the NCP while Sonia went on to contest her first LS poll from Amethi and won.
Even today after Sonia’s resignation offer the entire CWC with around 50 members is expected to reject the offer.
Meanwhile, all four Congress chief ministers—Punjab’s Amarinder Singh, Rajasthan’s Ashok Gehlot, Chhattisgarh’s Bhupesh Baghel and Puducherry’s V Narayanasamy—have backed Sonia as chief or Rahul as her replacement as and when she wants to step down.
Majority Congress state units have also passed resolutions asking Sonia to continue and slamming dissidents for going public with their letter.
Surjewala says Rahul did not allude to BJP; Sibal deletes tweet
The Congress did some damage control after Rahul Gandhi insinuated BJP link to the letter by some pro-reform leaders triggering public rebuttal by Kapil Sibal and Azad’s statement to the CWC that he would resign if any BJP link to the letter was found.
AICC media head Randeep Surjewala later said Rahul hadn’t said a word of this nature nor alluded to it. “Please don’t be misled by false media discourse or misinformation being spread. But yes, we all need to work together in fighting the draconian Modi rule rather than fighting and hurting each other and the Congress,” he said.
Later, Sibal deleted his tweet rebutting Rahul Gandhi who, according to CWC sources, did earlier insinuate a BJP link to the letter by the leaders. In a new tweet, Sibal said Rahul had informed him personally that he never said what was attributed to him.