New Delhi Sonia Gandhi, in an apparent message to the G23, on Saturday said that she is a full-time, hands-on party president and that leaders do not need to speak to her through the media. Her comments came just days after Kapil Sibal, one of the leaders of the group of 23 who wrote to Sonia Gandhi last year asking for an immediate meeting of the Congress Working Committee (CWC), and questioned who in the party was making decisions in the absence of a full-time president.
Addressing the meet Gandhi stated that our country has always had a broad agreement on foreign and neighbourhood policy, but it has been harmed as a result of the Prime Minister’s unwillingness to take the opposition into confidence. Sonia Gandhi adds, “Foreign policy has become a wicked instrument of electoral mobilisation and divisiveness; we have significant problems on our borders and on other fronts.” Gandhi stated in her opening remarks at the CWC meeting that every member of the party wants the Congress to be revived, but that this requires unity and keeping the party’s interests in mind.
Meanwhile, Sonia Gandhi emphasised that today was the perfect opportunity to put the organisational polls to rest once and for all. She added the CWC members had been scheduled on September 2022 for full-fledged organisational elections. All of the members of the CWC meeting supported Ashok Gehlot’s proposal that Rahul Gandhi should lead the Congress. At the meeting at the All India Congress Committee headquarters in New Delhi, senior leaders and G23 leaders Ghulam Nabi Azad and Anand Sharma were among those present.