Congress Working Committee – The New Indian Express

By PTI

NEW DELHI: The Congress party will have an elected president by June 2021, with the party’s working committee on Friday approving the holding of internal elections after assembly ballots. The committee, after a three-and-a-half-hour meeting, cleared incumbent party leader Sonia Gandhi to schedule internal elections following the conclusion of assembly polls in five states.

Addressing a joint press conference, Congress leaders KC Venugopal and Randeep Surjewala said CWC elections will also take place, but it remains to be seen whether they can be scheduled before or after the election for office. as leader of Congress.

Sources said the Central Election Authority has proposed holding polls to elect the party chairman and the AICC session on May 29 and the working committee discussed the dates but allowed Sonia Gandhi to do so. program after the votes of the assembly.

The CWC passed three resolutions demanding the repeal of the three Farm Bills, a time-limited JPC investigation into alleged violations of the National Security and Official Secrets Act and another to ensure that the government guarantees free, time-limited COVID-19 vaccination for the poor. and oppressed sections. “The CWC has decided that there will be an elected Congress President by June 2021 at all costs,” said AICC General Secretary KC Venugopal.

He specified that the small change of schedule according to the national elections will be decided soon. “The CWC discussed the timeline for the President of Congress elections at the end of May, proposed by his electoral authority. All CWC members unanimously requested the President of Congress that the internal elections not interfere with the elections in the ‘Assembly.”

He said the President of the Congress had been unanimously requested to postpone the AICC Plenary Session to the end of June 2021 and that the election of the Congress Leader would be concluded by June 2021. “We will organize elections in accordance with the party constitution. We need a change in the timetable due to the assembly polls, as the counting would be underway in May,” he said.

Asked about any dissenting notes on holding the elections, Surjewala said, “There was no dissent in the meeting.”

He added that leaders like Ghulam Nabi Azad, Anand Sharma or P Chidambaram were not dissidents but prominent members of the Congress party and were all unanimous in deciding to extend the electoral calendar a bit. “There was no debate on the issue of the timing of the elections. The meeting was very fruitful. There is no dispute on the conduct of organizational elections,” Venugopal said.

He said some clarity was needed on whether the CWC election could take place before or after the election of the Congress president. “We have to go to the constitution to look at that. The practice is to have the election of the president of Congress first and then the election of the CWC,” he said.

Rajasthan Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot has reportedly attacked the demanding internal elections, saying the leaders should leave that to the party leader and focus on how to fight the Narendra Modi-led BJP .

Sources said Anand Sharma objected to the tone of his remarks, calling it “disrespectful”. The virtual meeting chaired by party leader Sonia Gandhi began with her address. After the speech, Gandhi asked the organization of AICC Secretary General KC Venugopal to read the Organizational Calendar of Elections sent by the Chairman of the Central Election Authority.

The CEC chaired by Madhusudan Mistry has proposed that the AICC session and the election of the party’s chairman should take place on May 29, with the process of filing nominations starting in the same May.

The party’s senior leadership also discussed the current political situation following the farmers’ unrest and the party’s strategy ahead of Parliament’s budget session on various issues, including the leaked WhatsApp conversations of the editor of Republic TV, Arnab Goswami.

Sonia Gandhi took over as interim President of Congress in August 2019 after Rahul Gandhi resigned following the Lok Sabha party debacle in May 2019. There have been demands from a section of Congress leaders to have a active, full-time party president. and an organizational overhaul.

The CWC had at its previous meeting decided to hold organizational elections, following a storm in the party last August following 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 raise these questions.

Sonia Gandhi had met with some of these “letter writers” last month and discussed the issues they raised.