Congress leaders spar at CWC assembly, defer party polls till June
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Ghulam Nabi Azad opposed the concept and wished polls to be held instantly.
Amid sharp exchanges between senior leaders over inside polls, the digital assembly of Congress Working Committee (CWC) on Friday deferred the choice to elect a brand new party president till June, even because it adopted three resolutions together with one demanding a Joint Parliamentary Committee (JPC) probe into Republic TV promoter Arnab Goswami’s leaked WhatsApp chats.
The different two resolutions had been about backing the farmers’ organisations of their struggle in opposition to the farm legal guidelines, and expressing gratitude to scientists for growing a COVID vaccine in file time, asking without spending a dime vaccines for under-privileged sections and interesting to folks to return ahead to vaccinate themselves.
However, the difficulty of holding organisational polls uncovered the faultlines within the party with Rajasthan Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot and senior chief Anand Sharma sparring over it and former party president Rahul Gandhi stressing on the necessity to “avoid using harsh words”.
When Madhusudnan Mistry, who heads the party’s election panel instructed suspending the interior polls till May due to restrictions on massive gathering due to COVID, Leader of the Opposition in Rajya Sabha Ghulam Nabi Azad opposed the concept and wished polls to be held instantly.
Multiple sources informed The Hindu that Mr Azad, demanded elections not simply to the CWC but additionally to the Central Election Committee (CEC), the physique that decides who will get to contest an election on a Congress ticket.
He was backed by Anand Sharma and Mukul Wasnik — each members of the group of 23 dissenters (G-23) who had requested for a revamp of the party in a letter to party chief Sonia Gandhi final August — in addition to former Finance Minister, P Chidambaram.
Senior chief Ambika Soni, nonetheless, requested if the transfer would contain altering the party structure. While each Mr Sharma and Mr Wasnik defined that the present structure permits the party to take action, sources mentioned, Rajasthan Chief Minister (CM) Ashok Gehlot jumped proper into the controversy.
Mr Gehlot, claimed sources, requested in regards to the standing [haisiyat] of these demanding inside polls, their religion within the Congress management, asking whether or not arch rival BJP helds such elections and the hurry to carry elections at a time when the BJP was destabilising elected Congress governments.
He is learnt to have mentioned “whatever positions — be it CM, Union minister or a position in CWC — these leaders occupy now is because the leadership chose them for these roles”.
Hitting again, Mr Sharma expressed harm at Mr Gehlot questioning their intent, recalled his affiliation of 47 years with the Rajasthan CM and asserted that “the CWC was not a forum to use intemperate language’.
Ms Sonia tried to calm tempers by telling Mr Sharma that the Rajasthan Chief Minister had not named anyone and didn’t mean him.
Speaking after the two leaders, Mr. Gandhi said he “understood the differing viewpoints and asserted that only elections can end the debate”.
“Rahul ji said that hard words should not have been used and this meeting should have focussed only on farmers,” a CWC member mentioned.
A.K. Antony, Harish Rawat, Randeep Surjewala and Avinash Pande had been the opposite CWC members who didn’t endorse the concept of an elected CEC.
Trying to downplay inside variations, common secretary (group) K.C. Venugopal informed reporters at a press convention, “There is no dispute for conducting organisation election; everybody is for organisation elections. As per our constitution, there is little clarity needed on whether the Congress President election and Working President can be together or after the President election, CWC election has to be done.”
Though the party’s election authority had beneficial the month of May for inside elections, he mentioned, the date has been pushed again in view of the upcoming Assembly polls in Assam, Bengal, Kerala, Tamil Nadu and Puducherry.
The CWC additionally mentioned in regards to the party’s preparedness for these Assembly polls, mentioned a pacesetter.
In her opening remarks to the CWC, Congress chief Sonia Gandhi touched upon all the problems that had been adopted as resolutions and accused the federal government of “shocking insensitivity towards farmers” and a “deafening silence” over the leaked WhatsApp chats.
“It is abundantly clear that the three laws were prepared in haste and Parliament was consciously denied an opportunity for examining in any meaningful details their implications and impacts. Our position has been very clear from the very beginning: we reject them categorically because they will destroy the foundations of food security that are based on the three pillars of MSP [minimum support price], public procurement and PDS [public distribution system],” she mentioned.
Without naming the Republic TV promoter, she mentioned, “I think just a few days back, Antony-ji had said that leaking of official secrets of military operations is treason. Yet the silence from the Government’s side on what has been revealed has been deafening. Those who give certificates of patriotism and nationalism to others now stand totally exposed.”