Road to 2024 | Congress’s eternal Rahul Gandhi dilemma: Will he, won’t he? | Political Pulse News,The Indian Express

The party will have to elect a new president soon. Rahul remains the reluctant leader, but if not him, then who?

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Once the turbulent Monsoon session of Parliament ends in the second week of August, the Congress will get down to addressing an issue it can no longer ignore – electing a new president. An emotional, divisive, and sensitive issue but a crucial elephant in the AICC room.

The grand old party had been straddling the fence long enough. Between August 21 and September 20 — the timeline drawn up and announced by the party last year — the Congress will finally have to elect a new president to replace Sonia Gandhi, who returned to the helm in August 2019, three months after Rahul Gandhi quit as party chief in the wake of the Lok Sabha election rout. Sonia’s appointment was supposed to be an interim arrangement but continued for three years.

With a little under two years before the next general elections, the challenges the Congress faces in the August of 2022 are more or less the same as in August 2019.

Rahul, if some leaders are to be believed, has still not made up his mind. An ailing Sonia Gandhi wants to step back after putting him in charge and the party leadership frankly doesn’t have the appetite to experiment with a non-Gandhi ahead of the 2024 Lok Sabha elections. There is no consensus on any other name. Priyanka Gandhi Vadra as an alternative has not gained much traction.

https://indianexpress.com/article/political-pulse/congress-eternal-rahul-gandhi-dilemma-8064019/

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