The meeting of the Congress Working Committee chaired by the party’s interim President Sonia Gandhi is underway at All India Congress Committee (AICC) headquarters in New Delhi. Party leaders Rahul Gandhi and Chief Minister of Chhattisgarh Bhupesh Baghel were seen arriving at the AICC office ahead of the CWC meeting. Punjab Chief Minister and Congress leader Charanjit Singh Channi and senior party leader P Chidambaram were also seen at the meet.
The meeting is crucial as the CWC will discuss organisational polls, a long pending demand of G-23 leaders. Recently Gulam Nabi Azad, a G-23 member had written a letter to Congress interim president Sonia Gandhi to call an urgent meet of the CWC. Another member of the group, Kapil Sibbal courted controversy after he held a press conference in September where he said, “In our party, there is no president so we don’t know who is taking these decisions. We know and yet we don’t know.” Later, Congress workers protested outside his residence in the national capital. AICC General Secretary Ajay Maken had said that Sibal should not be degrading the organisation that gave him an identity.
In the last CWC meeting, it was decided to postpone the internal polls in wake of the second wave of COVID-19. However, no timeline was given about the schedule of these polls. A senior Congress functionary had earlier said as the Assembly polls in five important States are due in few months, it is likely that internal polls will be postponed till then but the final decision will be taken with the consensus of all CWC members.
Youth Congress, NSUI, Mahila Congress and Social Media’s National Executives have passed resolutions to make Rahul Gandhi, the Congress president. On the questions of Rahul Gandhi as Congress chief, G-23 leaders have said that the party should have a “full-time President”. Sonia Gandhi was made interim president by CWC after Rahul Gandhi stepped down as the President of AICC accepting the responsibility of poll debacle in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections.