Sonia Gandhi elected as leader of Congress Parliamentary Party

Sonia Gandhi has been elected as the leader of Congress Parliamentary Party at a crucial meeting in New Delhi on Saturday. ‘We thank the 12.13 crore voters for reposing faith in the Congress Party,’ Gandhi reportedly said after she was chosen as chairperson of the Congress’ elected parliamentarians. Gandhi, who represents Uttar Pradesh's Rae Bareli in Lok Sabha, is the chairperson of the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance (UPA). Former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh proposed Sonia Gandhi’s name during the Congress meeting at the Central Hall of Parliament. Congress spokesperson Randeep Singh Surjewala took toTtwitter to announce the development. The decision comes even as the suspense continues over Rahul Gandhi’s resignation. Now all eye will be on who will be chosen by Sonia Gandhi to be next leader of the Congress in Parliament. Things are bit confusing as her son Rahul Gandhi is adamant on stepping down as Congress chief.  

 

Smt. Sonia Gandhi elected as the leader of Congress Parliamentary Party!

She says, ‘we thank the 12.13 Cr voters for reposing faith in the Congress Party’. pic.twitter.com/H4z9i3dN8B

— Randeep Singh Surjewala (@rssurjewala) June 1, 2019

At the meeting, Rahul Gandhi thanked the voters and Congress workers. He said, ‘every Congress member must remember that each one of you is fighting for the Constitution, for every person in India irrespective of the colour of his skin or belief’. “In 2014, BJP was 280 and we were 45... But very quickly that 45 members defeated every single agenda against constitution of BJP. Again 52 members and I guarantee will fight against BJP every single inch. You have to understand that u r the constitution of this country and have to fight for this country across gender, religion, hatred and hate politics,” Gandhi added in an emphatic appeal to the new Congress lawmakers.

It should also be noted that this was the first official meeting that Rahul Gandhi attended after the May 25 meeting of the party's working committee, where he had offered to quit as Congress chief. The CWC has already rejected his offer to resign and unanimously passed a resolution authorising him to bring structural changes in the party at all levels in a bid to revamp it.

In the Lok Sabha Elections, the Congress didn’t even manage to open an account in states and Union Territories like Andhra Pradesh, Arunachal Pradesh, Delhi, Gujarat, Haryana, Himachal, Jammu and Kashmir, Manipur, Mizoram, Odisha, Rajasthan, Sikkim, Tripura, Uttarakhand, Andaman and Nicobar, Chandigarh, Dadar Nagar Haveli, Daman Diu and Lakshadweep. Though it did better its 2014 tally, but the Congress will not be the face of Opposition, if there’s one now. Reduced to just 52 seats in the Lok Sabha, the present situation of the Congress is far cry from the days of Jawaharlal Nehru and Indira Gandhi.