CWC meeting postponed: Interim chief, steering panel on Congress table

NEW DELHI: A proposal has emerged among Congress Working Committee members during their informal discussions for having an interim Congress chief and a kind of steering committee, it is learnt. The plan also envisages kick-starting the process of organisational polls that would culminate in the election of a Congress president.
The Congress leadership, however, is likely to delay the convening of a CWC meeting as it is preoccupied with the Parliament session and developments in Karnataka. While the Parliament session is slated to last till July 25, a senior party functionary indicated that the CWC meeting will be held only after July 22.

A collective leadership that will see a larger consensus and representation has been mooted to meet the challenge of rebuilding the party facing BJP’s toppling and poaching games in many states after the Lok Sabha poll rout. It will also help the party to prepare for the forthcoming elections in Maharashtra, Haryana and Jharkhand. Names suggested for the steering committee include those of CWC members Mukul Wasnik, Motilal Vora, Ghulam Nabi Azad, Ahmed Patel and AK Antony. Wasnik’s name has been doing the rounds for the interim party chief. Wasnik, Vora and Azad are the senior-most Congress general secretaries.

As part of the search for a provisional party president, a group of three senior Congress leaders have sought views and preferences of CWC members. Leaders say there would be an instant consensus on Sonia Gandhi, were she to agree to temporarily discharge the responsibility of party chief.

The names of senior Dalit leaders, Wasnik (Maharashtra), Mallikarjun Kharge (Karnataka) and Sushil Kumar Shinde (Maharashtra) along with two leaders from Hindi belt, Ashok Gehlot and Anand Sharma, are learnt to have figured for the interim chief ’s post during informal consultations. During discussions a couple of inquisitive leaders wondered whether Punjab chief minister Amarinder Singh’s and ex-CWC member Karan Singh’s suggestions for a ‘young charismatic leader’ as party president was an indication of their preference for Jyotiraditya Scindia.