The issue of a regular full-time Congress president continued to mark its presence on Saturday at the ongoing Nav Sankalp Chintan Shivir of the party with its different factions “unofficially” and separately pitching the names of Rahul Gandhi and Priyanka Gandhi for the top job before the media on the sidelines of the deliberations.
Officially, though, the party in its internal meetings chose to sidestep the issue. In a meeting of AICC general secretaries, PCC presidents and legislature party leaders over the party’s mass contact programmes, sources said a discussion cropped up about the immediate concern of leadership crisis.
A section of leaders appeared to be pitching for a different candidate and another wanted to bring back Rahul Gandhi to lead the party, sources said, adding there is likely to be a collective demand on the concluding day of the Shivir to bring the former Congress president back at the helm of affairs, officially.
Rahul called for planning Jan Jagran Abhiyan action plan.
Sensing that the situation was not conducive as some of the leaders present in the meeting remained silent, Sonia diverted the matter saying let Rahul focus on public awareness by travelling across the country.
Sonia was presiding over a meeting to discuss the second phase of the mass contact programme to take on the policies of the Government as well as rising inflation and unemployment in the country.
The Congress had launched the mass agitation/contact programme - ‘Jan Jagran Abhiyan’ - from November 14 to November 29, 2021 to highlight various issues, including inflation, recession, unemployment rate and farm distress.
Senior leader Digvijaya Singh, who heads the party’s Sustained Agitation Committee, gave a detailed presentation.
The Congress is also likely to constitute its Parliamentary Board replacing the Congress Election Committee that decides candidates for the Lok Sabha and Assembly elections. This has been an important demand of many of the dissenters within the party.
Those like Sachin Pilot have pinned hopes about the party giving more representation to the youth leaders in the Rajasthan Assembly polls and the 2024 general elections. But the old guards like Rajasthan Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot are unlikely to yield space to the younger lot.
Differences over ticket distribution were one of the main sticky points between Pilot and Gehlot.