‘Congress Chief Need Not be From Gandhi Family’: An Insistent Rahul Gandhi at CWC Meet

Rahul Gandhi is believed to have been hell-bent on stepping down as Congress president days after the party was handed a humiliating defeat in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections.

Updated: May 25, 2019 11:29 PM IST

By India.com News Desk | Edited by Ashna Kumar

'Congress Chief Need Not be From Gandhi Family': An Insistent Rahul Gandhi at CWC Meet

New Delhi: Continuing as party chief despite having expressed his wish to step down in wake of the drubbing Congress was handed in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, Rahul Gandhi is believed to have vouched for a ‘non-Gandhi’ to handle reins of Congress.

Read the full story of Rahul Gandhi tendering resignation as Congress chief

A report in NDTV read that Rahul Gandhi earnestly moved his resignation as the Congress president while maintaining that he will always remain a ‘disciplined soldier of the Congress and continue to fight fearlessly’.

The Grand Old Party suffered a humiliating defeat in the 2019 General Election by amassing 52 seats in the 452-seat Lok Sabha contest, thus improving its 2014 election tally of 44 seats only marginally.

Soon after the results were announced on May 23, rumors arose that Rahul was contemplating stepping down from the coveted party post.

Addressing a press conference after the Congress Working Committee convened on Saturday, senior party spokesperson Randeep Singh Surjewala claimed that Rahul Gandhi indeed tendered resignation but it was “unanimously and in one voice rejected by the committee”.

He further said that all members of the CWC urged Rahul to continue discharging his duties as the party president and requested him to lead the party in this challenging time and be the voice of the youth of India.

A media report stated that at the CWC, Rahul Gandhi said that Congress chief need not necessarily be from the Gandhi family.

Most of the party’s senior leaders such as former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, UPA Chairperson Sonia Gandhi, party general secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra, Ghulam Nabi Azad and Mallikarjun Kharge attended the meet. Chief Ministers of Rajasthan Ashok Gehlot, Punjab Amarinder Singh, and Chhattisgarh Bhupesh Baghel were also present at the meeting.

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