Kamal Nath meets Sonia Gandhi in Delhi, veteran leader likely to get 'big role' in Congress
Senior Congress leader Kamal Nath could soon be given a big responsibility in the party, sources told India TV. Nath, who is considered close to Gandhis, on Thursday afternoon met Congress interim chief Sonia Gandhi at her Delhi residence. Priyanka Gandhi, daughter of Sonia and Congress general secretary for Uttar Pradesh, was also present at the meeting.
The meeting has triggered talks about Congress opting for an overhaul in the near future. Talks are also doing the rounds that the process to elect a full time president could begin soon. Sources said that the grand old party is in mood for a "drastic change" in the organisation.
They said that an AICC session could be convened in August to effect the changes.
The Congress party is headless after Rahul Gandhi relinquished the president's chair in July 2019 following second consecutive humiliation in the general elections at the hands of the BJP. His mother Sonia was then appointed as the interim chief of the party. There have been demands within the party to elect a new full-time and visible president.
Nath is said to have a stronghold inside the organisation and greater acceptability among the top leaders. In 2002, he was appointed as the general secretary of the Congress party. This was when Sonia Gandhi was still emerging as a leader and was faced with the challenge to defeat Atal Bihari Vajpayee-led BJP in the subsequent Lok Sabha polls. He is also considered a favourite of Rahul who served as the president of the Congress from December 2017 to July 2019.
A 9-time Parliamentarian from Madhya Pradesh's Chhindwara, Nath was considered a Delhi politician who spent most of his life in the national capital. But he was appointed as the chief of Madhya Pradesh Congress Committee in 2018 and sent to his home state to lead the party in assembly elections. He assumed the office of Chief Minister on December 17, 2018 and resigned on March 20, 2020 after he failed to safeguard his government following a rebellion by Jyotiraditya Scindia who defected to the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) with 22 MLAs.
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