Party wants Rahul Gandhi to continue as president: Congress

Amid a spate of resignations by Congress office-bearers, the party said Saturday that the entire organisation, in one voice, wants its president Rahul Gandhi to continue in the post.

The Congress also mocked Home Minister and BJP president Amit Shah after he blamed first prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru for the problems in Jammu and Kashmir, saying he draws his knowledge of history from WhatsApp and that the opposition party can send him history books.

At a press conference, Congress spokesperson Pawan Khera said many party leaders have resigned, but the prevailing sentiment is that Gandhi should continue as the party president.

He parried queries about why several senior party leaders had not quit their position, insisting that "people have different ways of expressing their request" which is that, he added, Gandhi should remain the Congress chief.

Khera noted that the Congress Working Committee, the party's apex body, had also passed a resolution, urging Gandhi to remain at the helm.

Several office-bearers of the Congress, including its general secretary incharge of Madhya Pradesh Dipak Babaria and Goa unit chief Girish Chodankar, had resigned on Friday, after MP Vivek Tankha quit as the chairman of the party's legal and human rights cell and urged others to follow suit to give a free hand to Rahul Gandhi to restructure the party at all levels.

Asked about Shah's attack on Nehru and blaming the Congress for troubles in Jammu and Kashmir, Khera said the Congress wants to focus on issues like unemployment facing the masses today.

He then took the Whatsapp dig at Shah.

He said before Muslim League, it was Veer Sawarkar, a reverential figure in the BJP, and Hindu Mahasabha which had propogated two-nation theory.

Shah had blamed the Congress for partition.