CWC decides to have new party president by June

In the meeting, Congress decided to conduct organizational polls in June 2021.

The Congress Working Committee decided on Friday that organisational polls will be held in June 2021 to elect the party president. The decision was announced by the general secretary of AICC, KC Venugopal. “The CWC unanimously decided that the new elected Congress president should be in place by June 2021. The CWC considered the election schedule of May 29 proposed by the central election authority and unanimously agreed to extend the schedule until June as counting for five state elections could be happening in May,” he said.

In the last couple of months some senior leaders Ghulam Nabi Azad, Anand Sharma, P Chidambaram and Mukul Wasnik had raised doubts over the leadership of the party as Congress had failed multiple times in elections. Reportedly, these leaders had asked for immediate organisational polls but other party members Ashok Gehlot, Amarinder Singh, AK Antony, Tariq Anwar and Oommen Chandy were not in favour of the idea. They demanded that elections should be held once the state polls of five states are over.

Soon the election dates and CWC will be announced and the final decision will be presided by Sonia Gandhi, leaders said. In 2019, Rahul Gandhi resigned from the post of party president following which Sonia Gandhi took over as the interim president of the Congress. Reportedly, CWC also passed three resolutions- the first to demand a JPC probe into Arnab chat leaks saying “those guilty of treasonous acts and of violating the official secrets act and breaching national security must be punished”; a second on demanding the repeal of farm laws and third demanding free COVID vaccines for SCs, STs, OBCs and the poor.