New Delhi: Sonia Gandhi today said she “wants to be relieved” of the post of interim Congress president and urged her colleagues to start looking for a replacement as the party’s top decision-making body met a day after an explosive letter written by 23 top leaders calling for sweeping reforms and “a full-time, visible leadership” emerged. The letter, demanding “collective decision-making”, called into question the leadership of the Gandhis, who have led the Congress for much of its 134-year history.
One of the signatories to the letter, Ghulam Nabi Azad, offered to resign as he faced criticism for several Congress leaders. With Sonia Gandhi reportedly firm on quitting the job, an All India Congress Committee meeting to launch the search for a new chief emerged as a popular suggestion. Rahul Gandhi, who was believed to be at his mother’s home during the meeting, hit out at the signatories to the letter and questioned such a move “when the Congress was at its weakest, when it was battling crises in Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan and when the Congress president (Sonia Gandhi) was unwell”.
But reports that Rahul Gandhi had also accused the letter-writers of colluding with the BJP led to an unprecedented backlash. Leaders like Kapil Sibal – who is among the signatories to the letter, shot off a tweet hitting out at Rahul Gandhi, which is rare for the Congress. Kapil Sibal soon deleted the
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tweet and posted: “Was informed by Rahul Gandhi personally that he never said what was attributed to him . I therefore withdraw my tweet .” The Congress also tweeted that Rahul Gandhi “hadn’t said a word of this nature nor alluded to it” and blamed the reports on “false media discourse or misinformation”.
Ghulam Nabi Azad, who was also among the “dissidents” who wrote the August 7 letter, found himself a lone target at the CWC meet with leaders like former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh criticizing the letter and its leak. He also offered to quit if it was established that he had collaborated with the BJP.