The book, ‘India Tomorrow: Conversations with the Next generation of Political Leaders’ written by US academicians Pradeep Chibber and Harsh Shah, also quotes Priyanka Gandhi as having said that the Congress should have its own path.
Congress general secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra agreed with her brother, Rahul Gandhi, last year when he said that a non-Gandhi should lead their party.She had outright rejected the demands for her to take over the party.
“Perhaps not in the (resignation) letter but elsewhere he has said that none of us should be the president of the party and I am in full agreement with him,” the book quotes Priyanka Gandhi as having said in her interview to the authors.Priyanka Gandhi’s response came when a party general secretary, in the course of the meeting, suggested that she should come forward and assume the leadership role. She firmly told him and others present to desist from taking her name as her brother’s replacement. “Don’t drag me into this,” she had said
Commenting on it, a senior Congress functionary said, on the condition of anonymity, that “a 15-month old comment of Priyanka Gandhi is being projected as a fresh interview”.Congress leaders recall that Rahul Gandhi had offered his resignation from the president’s post at a Congress Working Committee (CWC) meeting on May 25 last year, taking responsibility for the party’s crushing defeat in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections.
Rahul Gandhi remained firm on his decision and posted a farewell note to his supporters on July 3 last year to put a stamp of finality on his resignation.In the CWC meeting, Rahul Gandhi slammed the veterans for “placing the interests” of their sons above the party, and also mentioned that some leaders had even lost the election from their strongholds even as he criticised a section of the so-called GenNext for hankering for posts.
He also told the CWC a non-Gandhi should be elected as the new Congress chief. In the same meeting, Priyanka Gandhi, while insisting that only one person could not be held accountable for the poll debacle, had agreed with her brother that a non-Gandhi should become the Congress president.
The Congress did try to find a non-Gandhi as its chief but failed to do so.Ahead of another CWC meeting on August 10, its members were divided into five groups to interact with state leaders from five regions of the country and evolve a consensus on the party chief’s name.
While Sonia Gandhi was in the group that interacted with the leaders from the eastern region of the country, Rahul Gandhi was in the group for the west. Priyanka Gandhi Vadra was part of the group for the north, Manmohan Singh south and Ambika Soni for the northeast.
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