Congress leader Harish Rawat states 'Process to elect next party President has started'

Congress leader Harish Rawat on Sunday stated that the process of electing next president of the party has been started. While ruling out the news of any rift between the old and the young leaders in the party, he said the presidential election process has been started while respecting the views of the dissenting leaders.

"There were rumours that senior leaders are dissenters and are being called G23. This is just a creation of the media. The leadership has cleared that they are part of our family, and whatever they have said is within our internal democracy and we respect that," Rawat said at the sidelines of a meet chaired by Congress President Sonia Gandhi to address the senior leaders.

"According to their suggestions, few committees have been formed and the process to elect the next party president has been started. There is no old versus young," Rawat said.

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First in-person meeting

Defending Rahul Gandhi over "rumours" that he and his close associates were against the senior leaders, Rawat said, "Rahul Gandhi is not against the senior party leaders and has respect for them. Rahul Gandhi respects them for not just their experience but because they had worked with his father Rajiv." 

Rawat also stated that this is not the first meeting as the party leaders have been meeting virtually, however, he added that this meet was called because Sonia Gandhi wanted to meet the party leaders personally. The meet is said to be the first in-person meet held by Sonia Gandhi since the start of COVID-19 pandemic.

"This time Sonia Gandhi said she wanted to meet all the leaders personally. All the leaders were there and everyone openly put their points in front of Sonia Gandhi. There is one conclusion. The country needs the Congress, and we need to strengthen ourselves and our responsibility under the leadership of Gandhis," Rawat said.

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Ghulam Nabi Azad, Anand Sharma, Prithviraj Chavan and Manish Tewari were among the dissenters who attended the meeting called by Sonia Gandhi.

Amid the leadership crisis in the party, Congress is considering holding elections for the position of party chief in April next year, according to sources. The sources said that former party President Rahul Gandhi is not willing to contest the elections while some Gandhi loyalists are pushing for Priyanka Gandhi Vadra's name. Meanwhile, the 23 Congress leaders or the 'G23' leaders who had written to Sonia Gandhi to revive the organisation are of the view that the next President should not be from the Gandhi-Vadra family.

(With ANI inputs)

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