‘Don’t hold anything against anyone’, says Sonia Gandhi after CWC asks her to continue as party chief

New Delhi, August 24: Congress’ interim president Sonia Gandhi on Monday said that she doesn’t hold anything against anyone, as the working committee of the party urged her to continue as party chief.
“Congress is one big family and I don’t hold anything against anyone. But all, especially senior leaders should raise concerns at the party forum only,” Gandhi said after a seven-hour-long meeting of the CWC, the party’s highest decision-making body.
The CWC meeting was called to find a way out of the internal crisis triggered by a letter from 23 Congress leaders seeking overhaul of the organisation. Some of the demands of these leaders included choosing an active, full-time and visible president.
A large section of the leaders backed Sonia Gandhi at the virtual meeting. Led by former prime minister Manmohan Singh and AK Antony, these leaders attacked the group which wrote the letter. Antony dubbed the letter as “unfortunate and cruel”.
One of the senior Congress leaders Kapil Sibal, who is also among the signatories of the letter, created a flutter when he tweeted against Rahul Gandhi over purported remark linking them to the Bharatiya Jahata Party (BJP). He withdrew his tweet after a clarification from Congress spokesperson Randeep Singh Surjewala. “Was informed by Rahul Gandhi personally that he never said what was attributed to him. I therefore withdraw my tweet,” he said on Twitter.
Ghulam Nabi Azad, one of the dissenters, too attempted to set the record straight.
The leader of opposition in the Rajya Sabha said, ‘A section of media is wrongly attributing that in CWC I told Rahul Gandhi to prove that the letter written by us is in collusion with BJP. Let me make it very clear that Rahul Gandhi has neither in CWC nor outside said that this letter was written at the behest of BJP.”