Time for CWC, AICC members to quit, says Congress leader

In the wake of Uttar Pradesh poll debacle, Telangana's senior Congress leader M Shashidhar Reddy has called for the resignation of CWC and AICC members to give vice-president Rahul Gandhi a free hand to revamp the party.
Reddy said late K Kamaraj, despite the Congress coming to power at the Centre for the third time in 1963, had proposed to erstwhile Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru that all senior Congress leaders holding ministerial office should resign and take up party work.
"It was then felt that continuous office incumbency was distancing leaders from the fears and feelings, thoughts and travails of the masses. Panditji (Nehru) saw the point and told Kamaraj Ji that he would like to be the first one to go. Kamaraj Ji had demurred and insisted that Panditji must remain Prime Minister. This had led to a major shake up," he said.

"In the light of the electoral losses (of the Congress) in 2014 and thereafter in some states, and the strong urge from the party cadres, and people in general as well, about the need to resurrect the Congress, which alone can challenge the BJP in the country, there is a need for the Version 2 of the Kamaraj Plan", said Reddy, son of former Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister late M Chenna Reddy.
It is time for members of the CWC and AICC office-bearers to submit their resignations to give Congress vice president Rahul Gandhi a free hand to reorganise and revamp the Congress party. There should be a new-look party organisation at the national level, with new faces - a mix of the old and the young, he said.

Lessons should also be learnt from the recent success in Punjab where senior leader Capt Amarinder Singh has delivered, as was the case in Himachal Pradesh earlier under Virbhadra Singh, Reddy said in a statement.
"Some of the senior leaders who have been holding responsibility at the national level for very long, including those who have been in-charge of certain states where we failed, and who have distanced themselves from the fears and feelings, thoughts and travails of the masses, must return to their own states and contribute to the party's revamp there," he suggested.