Chandigarh, (Samajweekly) Punjab Chief Minister Captain Amarinder Singh on Monday welcomed the unanimous resolution passed by the Congress Working Committee (CWC), asking Sonia Gandhi to continue as interim party President till the next AICC session and authorising her to take whatever decisions needed.
He, however, agreed with former party chief Rahul Gandhi that her continuation at the helm of the Congress could not be open-ended.
Speaking during the CWC meet, via video conference, he also endorsed Rahul Gandhi’s suggestion that some sort of structure needs to be put in place to assist the Congress President in handling the party’s affairs and functioning.
The Chief Minister also said he was in agreement with senior party leader P. Chidambaram that the next AICC session should be convened at the earliest, possibly within the next six months, to elect the new President.
Since a regular session was precluded by the Covid-19 pandemic, it could be held virtually, he said, backing Chidambaram’s suggestion on the issue.
Amarinder Singh also said he was in full agreement with the CWC resolution stressing the need for discussing and addressing intra-party differences within the party and not in the media or in public.
“There are ways to deal with issues,” he had said earlier, at the start of the meeting, in reference to the content and the leakage of the letter by a group of Congress leaders.
“This is not done. The BJP is after us and then, in the middle of it, we find our own people striking a dissenting note,” he observed, speaking immediately after Rahul Gandhi’s intervention questioning the timing of the letter.
The Chief Minister had earlier also urged Sonia Gandhi to continue to lead the party and hand over the baton to Rahul Gandhi once she decides to finally step down.
Terming as “shameful and unacceptable” the public dissent by a group of Congress leaders in the midst of the continuing BJP onslaught against the party, he said that Sonia Gandhi had always been accessible, and there was no need to pen down such a letter and then putting it in public domain.
While he said that all the leaders who had signed the letter were friends of the rest in the party and he hoped they would continue to do so, Amarinder Singh made it clear that what their act was not acceptable.
