The Congress’s top decision-making body, the Working Committee – the party’s top decision-making body – is meeting for a second time today to take a call on who would succeed Rahul Gandhi as the party chief. Rahul Gandhi and Sonia Gandhi are attending the meeting, which will take a final decision on basis of the suggestions forwarded by state leaders and the leaders representing five zonal units after their day-long discussion. This morning, Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi had excused themselves from the zonal boduy meetings, saying they cannot be part of the selection process. Rahul Gandhi had announced his decision to quit the party’s top post in May after its disastrous performance in the Lok Sabha election.
Here’s your 10-point cheat sheet to this big story:
1. Sources said the sub-committees want Rahul Gandhi to continue as the party chief. If not, they want him to nominate a leader. But Rahul Gandhi is unlikely to accept the job.
2. In case if a refusal from Mr Gandhi, the party’s veteran leader Mukul Wasnik – known to be close to Sonia Gandhi — is ahead in the race for the job. The other contender is Mallikarjun Kharge, who was the party’s leader in the Lok Sabha during the first term of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government.
3. Earlier today, Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi refused to take part in the selection process, saying they did not want to complicate the issue or “play favourites”. “It is a mistake that our names were added to the (zonal) groups,” Sonia Gandhi told reporters.
4. Sonia Gandhi had been placed in the eastern zonal committee. Rahul Gandhi was named as part of the zonal committee for western India – Maharashtra is the largest state where elections will be held next.
5. The Congress’s state units and the legislature parties are taking part in a marathon meet that went on through the day. The committees represent the east, north-east, south, west and north zones. There is suspense over whether the party will elect its new leader or go by nomination, as it happened traditionally.
6. Rahul Gandhi is in favour of a broad consultation before zeroing in on a candidate. At a meeting of Congress leaders on Friday, Mr Gandhi said a new Congress president should be chosen after more consultation with state leaders and the legislature party, sources said.
7. The election comes ahead of a string of state elections later this year. There has been criticism that the party’s inability to sort out the leadership issue has drawn attention away from these key elections – the first since the Lok Sabha elections. It has also upset the leaders and workers and an exodus is likely if the matter was not sorted, senior party leader Shashi Tharoor has warned.
8. The Congress had been decimated in the Lok Sabha elections, winning only 52 seats – a marginal increase over its score of 44 in the 2014 election. Accentuating the defeat, Mr Gandhi’s had lost his traditional family turf Amethi to the BJP’s Smriti Irani.
9. Insisting that “accountability” must be maintained, Rahul Gandhi announced his decision to step down at a closed-door meeting of the Working Committee on May 25. He also ruled out his mother Sonia Gandhi and sister Priyanka Gandhi Vadra’s taking over the top post, underscoring that the Congress must look for a non-Gandhi leader.
10. For most of its 134-year history, the Congress always had the Gandhis at the helm, except for several years in the 90s after former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi was assassinated. But the party did not do well under Sitaram Kesri and several leaders convinced Sonia Gandhi to lead it.
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