Harish Gupta, National Editor, Lokmat Group
New Delhi, Aug. 22
Congress Interim president Sonia Gandhi may offer to step down from her post at the meeting of the Congress Working Committee on Monday next.
Highly placed sources in the party told Lokmat tonight that Sonia Gandhi has made up her mind and informed a select group of leaders about her intentions to make room for a non-Gandhi to occupy the post. This in a way, is bowing to the wishes of her son Rahul Gandhi who took moral responsibility for the debacle of the party in 2019 Lok Sabha polls and quit. He also desired that a non-Gandhi be elected to run the party.
But the entire CWC rejected the decision and later elected Sonia Gandhi an interim president. However, the experiment failed and now it is emerging that an upset Sonia Gandhi may offer to quit. Though she has full one more year to go an Interim president of the Congress, she is pained and may offer to quit.
It is reliably learnt that some of the senior Congress leaders including Kapil Sibal and Anand Sharma among others have written a letter to Sonia Gandhi about the state of the party and how it should be reorganised.
When contacted, no senior leader was willing to comment. Kapil Sibal did not respond to phone calls and neither Anand Sharma responded. Ghulam Nabi Azad has also been upset as he had not been renominated to the Rajya Sabha and may not remain Leader of the Opposition in Rajya Sabha. However, Mallikarjun Kharge, senior-most member of the CWC and Rajya Sabha MP told Lokmat over the phone that he would participate in the virtual meeting on Monday. He declined to say anything more exceot that he is a loyal soldier of the party.
