Sonia says Rahul natural choice for liberals

Fuels speculation the younger Gandhi could be elevated as Congress working president on Tuesday

Congress President Sonia Gandhi has stamped out doubts expressed about party vice-president (VP) Rahul Gandhi’s leadership by stating, “The Congress VP is the natural icon to rally progressive and liberal forces.”

Sonia Gandhi’s reassertion of faith in her son was made in a letter to the Pradesh Congress chiefs of all states, a fortnight back and has served to support speculation that Rahul Gandhi could be elevated as the party’s working president at the Congress Working Committee (CWC) meeting on Tuesday.

The Congress is unwilling to comment on the issue, but a demand to appoint Gandhi as working president will be voiced at the meeting.

All-India Congress Committee (AICC) General Secretary Digvijay Singh, who is a CWC member, last week publicly demanded Rahul Gandhi’s elevation.

“Such crucial announcements are made usually at a plenary like the Jaipur session in 2013, where Rahul Gandhi was appointed vice-president. The upcoming AICC session slated for March will be a one-day affair,” a senior Congress leader told Business Standard.

He declined to comment on whether Rahul Gandhi could be named working president with his mother still occupying the top party job.

The CWC will officially discuss the “current political situation”. Sources said the agenda would take up the Congress strategy to counter the Bharatiya Janata Party on eight recent ordinances, especially the one on land acquisition.

The party last week directed all general secretaries in charge of states to rally farmers and villagers on the rights they stood to lose in the BJP ordinance that were assured in the United Progressive Alliance land acquisition Bill.

The CWC is meeting after the winter session of Parliament, when the Opposition put the government in the dock over its alleged communal agenda. The Congress has decided to corner the government on the land ordinance in Parliament during the upcoming budget session.

Another Congress leader said Rahul Gandhi could be elevated as president at the party plenary later in the year because organisational elections were set to begin in the next two months and this would culminate in the election of a new president in August-September.

Sonia Gandhi is not in the best of health and her son is calling the shots in the Congress for all practical purposes — whether  it will be formalised with the title of Working president is up for conjecture.