by Harish Gupta, National Editor, Lokmat Group
Special Report
Why delay to chose new Congress President ?
Sonia hopeful of Rahul's return
Harish Gupta
New Delhi, July 27
The suspense continues over the delay in choosing a new Congress president after Rahul Gandhi abruptly quit as party chief on May 25. Though it was widely reported that the Congress Working Committee will meet this week to select a “working president”. But Rahul Gandhi left for the USA leaving everyone high and dry. Rahul Gandhi was back in the Capital on Thursday last but there are no signs of a CWC meet.
Highly placed sources say that the CWC meeting may not take place early. These sources say that UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi is in no hurry either to get a new “working president” elected. She wants to give enough time to Rahul Gandhi to ponder over his resignation. She believes that Rahul Gandhi quit the post in a huff and anger in the aftermath of massive defeat of the party in the Lok Sabha polls on May 23. Rahul Gandhi was extremely angry as he had expected the party to win at least 150 Lok Sabha seats. His assessment was based on data analytics head Praveen Chakravarty who had convinced him of achieving the target and also reassured him that “Chowkidar Chore Hai” slogan is successful. Several state Congress leaders had told Rahul Gandhi of party getting good number of seats in their respective states. It was in this background that he went ballistic at the CWC meet for the poor showing and held them responsible too. He tendered his own resignation and had expected that they too will follow suit. But nothing of the sort happened and things came to a standstill.
