The decks were cleared on Monday for the elevation of Rahul Gandhi as president of the Congress with the Congress Working Committee (CWC), the party’s apex decision-making body, unanimously asking him to do so.
This came after a surprise move by senior CWC member A.K. Antony, who put forward the proposal.
He was backed by former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. Party sources told The Hindu that most CWC members were taken by surprise but once the proposition was on the table, everyone endorsed it.
Indeed, thereafter, member after member stressed that Mr. Gandhi should take over the reins of the party from his mother and Congress president Sonia Gandhi.
The meeting, in any case, was chaired by Mr. Gandhi as his mother, party sources said, was indisposed. Mr. Gandhi expressed his willingness to take on the role and responsibilities to fight for the preservation of the idea of India.
Briefing the media later, Mr. Antony said the CWC members would now collectively place this before Ms. Gandhi who, he said, would definitely “give it the attention it deserved”, suggesting that she was in the know of the move to propose Mr. Gandhi’s name.
Party sources added that another CWC meeting would be called soon to ratify the decision. Sources said the meeting would be held very soon, certainly before end-December, well before the U.P. and Punjab polls.
“At today's CWC, members unanimously expressed the strong sentiment of crores of Congress workers and sympathisers that Rahul Gandhi must take over the presidency and mobilise other forces to take on the dictatorial tendencies of the government and the forces of communal polarisation and social division unleashed by the RSS,” Mr Antony said.
This sentiment, he continued, will be conveyed to Ms Gandhi before deciding on a future course of action. “I'm sure our appeal will get proper attention from Ms Gandhi,” he emphasised, adding that what distinguished the CWC’s appeal to Mr Gandhi from previously reported appeals was that “in the past, it was just speculation”.
Meanwhile, the CWC has also decided that it will seek another year from the Election Commission of India (ECI) to complete its organisational elections. The election of a new president and organisational elections, Mr Antony said, have nothing to do with each other as the CWC is empowered to choose a new president.
The CWC’s surprise announcement on Monday brings to an end months of speculation on the timing of Mr Gandhi taking over from his mother as president. Since it precedes the completion of the organisational elections, it also means that it will give him the opportunity to re-imagine the party in the way he wants, putting in place a fresh team for the 2019 Lok Sabha elections.
In 2014, when the Congress plummeted to a historic low, winning just 44 parliamentary seats, a shocked party put off the elevation of Mr Gandhi for a more propitious occasion.
But after two and a half years of the Modi government, a section of the party (largely those not holding party positions) began to stress that the moment of renewal could not be deferred any longer.
Ms Gandhi’s illness earlier this year when she visited Varanasi became a clincher for effecting that change: of late, Ms Gandhi has been seen in public just twice — on the occasion of Ram Lila and when she met visiting Sri Lankan Prime Minister Ranil Wickramasinghe in New Delhi. In addition, Myanmar's Foreign Minister and State Counsellor Aung San Suu Kyi called on her at her residence last month.
