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New Delhi:
Asserting that there was no urgency to have an elected Congress president, senior chief Salman Khurshid on Sunday mentioned he “can’t” see the heavens falling” for the need of a party chief as Sonia Gandhi was still at the helm and should be the one to decide on the leadership issue.
Khurshid, a former Union minister and among the leaders considered close to the Gandhi family, told PTI in an interview that he would not have signed the letter even if he was approached by the group that wrote to Gandhi seeking urgent organisational overhaul, including an active and full-time leadership.
On Ghulam Nabi Azad, the most vocal among the 23 letter writers, seeking organisational elections to ensure that the Congress does not remain out of power for decades, Khurshid said the senior leader from Jammu and Kashmir had been part of the top echelons of the party for years when there has been no such elections and still the party prospered.
He said probably Azad wanted a change now in what the party has been doing over the years and expressed confidence that the leadership will give a thought to what he is saying as he is a senior leader Khurshid said the leaders who have written to Sonia Gandhi always had access to her and could have approached her rather than writing to her.
“It may be very clear that the vital individuals on this letter do belong to the highest echelons of our occasion and subsequently Mrs Gandhi has indicated that it was greatest that they might have mentioned it inside the confines of the occasion,” he said.
Khurshid’s remarks assume significance as they come days after the “group of 23” wrote to Gandhi calling for far-reaching reforms within the party such as having a “full time, energetic and visual” leadership, devolution of powers to state units and revamping the Congress Working Committee (CWC) in line with the party constitution.
Asked about the suggestions made in the letter, Khurshid said the discussion seems to be about electing a leader and the Congress president has indicated that it can be done at an appropriate time when physically it is possible.
“For individuals like me, we have already got leaders, we’ve got a frontrunner in Mrs Sonia Gandhi, we’ve got a frontrunner in Rahul Gandhi. So for me there isn’t any sense of urgency about electing leaders. Electing a president, sure that can occur when it occurs, I can not see the heavens falling down. What is the sense of urgency that’s being expressed, shouldn’t be clear to me,” he said.
“We do not have a part-time president, we’ve got a full-time president however the full-time president is an interim president and no unusual individual as an interim president as she is the longest serving president. We should simply belief and go away it to the longest serving president to take steps when she thinks it’s applicable,” the Congress leader said.
On whether it would have been better to go to the president for articulating concerns than writing a letter, Khurshid said the leaders had done that for the last 20 years and he did not know what was different now or had changed that they felt the need to write a letter.
Asked about the future of the party with knives out within the organisation at a time it needs to be revitalised, he said, “The pens are out, so what’s the downside. Of course the phrases written with pens can damage they usually did, however they do not draw blood…it is solely ink, it is one thing we are able to dwell with and I’m certain that the ink will fade in the end.”
Khurshid said no one had approached him for signing the letter and even if anyone had done so, he would not have signed because he does not agree with the letter.
“There is nothing about that letter that provides a possibility for me to precise and say that I’ll need to say…We have at all times spoken immediately with the management, so I do not know what modified due to which persons are not talking immediately. Nothing has modified for me and subsequently, I do not see the urge for writing the letter,” he said.
Khurshid said he still feels that instead of leaders continuously urging Rahul Gandhi to come back as party chief, they must leave the decision to him.
“Surely he understands the implications of that letter greater than I do, he’ll do what he thinks is the most effective to do,” he said, when asked if it was now imperative for Rahul Gandhi to return as party chief to set the house in order.
After the seven-hour meeting of the party’s top decision-making body last week, the CWC urged Sonia Gandhi to continue as its interim chief till an AICC session could be convened and authorised her to effect necessary organisational changes to deal with the challenges facing the party.
It made it clear no one would be permitted to undermine or weaken the party and its leadership.
The CWC also resolved that inner-party issues cannot be deliberated through the media or in public fora and all such issues must be raised within the party “within the curiosity of propriety and self-discipline”.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV employees and is printed from a syndicated feed.)
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