Party will decide on leader: Rahul
Friday, 21/06/2019
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NEW DELHI: Nearly a month after Congress president Rahul Gandhi announced his intention to resign from party leadership at a Congress Working Committee meeting, which was rejected by the party through a formal resolution , Gandhi indicated on Thursday that he is firm on his decision and said that it is for the party to pick his replacement.
On Thursday, after President Ram Nath Kovind’s address to a joint session of Parliament, reporters asked Gandhi who may replace him as party chief. “I am not the one to decide,’’ he replied.
Gandhi declared he would quit after the electoral debacle faced by the party in the recent Lok Sabha polls. But the party’s senior leadership as well as its state units had appealed to him to stay on.
Over the past month, since the election results, Gandhi has drastically reduced his political engagements with party leaders. He has only met senior leader AK Antony and general secretary (organisation) KC Venugopal on a regular basis, and has repeatedly conveyed to interlocutors that there will be no going back on his intent.
A Congress leader who went to meet Rahul Gandhi on his birthday, on June 19, tried to raise the issue of his resignation.
