Congress Central Panel Proposes Elections for Party Chief Position, AICC Session on May 29: Sources

The Congress Central Election Authority has proposed holding of polls for electing the party president and AICC session on May 29 and the working committee is likely to finalise the same at its meeting, highly places sources said. The crucial meeting of the CWC, the party’s highest decision making body, is deliberating on the issue. The virtual meeting started with the address of party chief Sonia Gandhi, who is chairing the meeting.

After her address, Gandhi asked AICC General Secretary Organisation K C Venugopal to read out the Organisational Election Schedule sent by Chairperson of the Central Election Authority. The CEC chaired by Madhusudan Mistry has proposed that the AICC Session and the party president’s election be held on May 29, the sources told PTI.

Members of the CWC will finalise the schedule for organisational elections and the AICC plenary session. The party’s top leadership also discussed the current political situation in the wake of the farmers’ agitation and the party’s strategy ahead of the Budget session of Parliament on issues including the WhatsApp chat leaks of Arnab Goswami.

Sonia Gandhi took over as interim Congress president in August 2019 after Rahul Gandhi resigned in the wake of the party’s Lok Sabha debacle in May 2019. There have been demands from a section of the Congress leaders for having a full-time and active party president and an organisational overhaul.

The CWC had in its earlier meeting decided to hold organisational elections, following a storm in the party in August last year over a letter to Sonia Gandhi by a group of 23 leaders including Ghulam Nabi Azad, Anand Sharma, Bhupinder Hooda, Prithviraj Chavan, Kapil Sibal, Manish Tewari and Mukul Wasnik raising these issues. Sonia Gandhi had last month met some of these ‘letter-writers’ and discussed the issues raised by them.