New Delhi: Sonia Gandhi has been re-elected the chairperson of the Congress’s elected parliamentarians at the meeting of the party’s parliamentary committee this morning.
The parliamentary party meeting was attended by all 52 lawmakers of the Congress from the Lok Sabha as well as its members from the Rajya Sabha.
Her name was proposed by former Prime Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh. Rahul Gandhi expressed his desire to step down as the party chief.
At the meeting, Sonia Gandhi thanked the 12.13 crore people who voted for the Congress — pointing out that even in defeat, the party has a sizeable voter base.
In an emotive note, she also thanked Rahul Gandhi “for toiling night and day and taking on the Modi government… raising concerns about all sections of society and helped the party win in Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh and Rajasthan”.
Amid efforts to get him to change his mind about resigning the party post, the Congress has debated the possibility of Rahul Gandhi at least leading the party in parliament.
The Congress is three members short of the figure that would qualify it for the post of the Leader of the Opposition. The rout in the recently held Lok Sabha elections has left the party with 52 lawmakers – marginally higher than the figure of 44 in 2014.
The position of the Leader of the Congress was occupied by party veteran Mallikarjun Kharge in the last Lok Sabha. Kharge, however, lost the election from Karnataka’s Gulbarga- the first electoral loss for the nine-time legislator and two-term Lok Sabha member.
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Ms Kalinga