‘Congress will have elected chief at any cost by June’

The Congress is going for yet another organisational election after almost three years. The Congress Working Committee (CWC) approved the schedule for the polls prepared by party’s Central Election Authority Madhusudan Mistry on Friday. “CWC decided that there will be an elected Congress President by June, 2021 at any cost,” Congress general secretary KC Venugopal told reporters after the meeting.

Venugopal said minor changes in the schedule is possible as five States are going to polls this year. He said the decision was unanimous. “There is no big debate in the CWC. Everybody is unanimous on these things. We will conduct election according to the constitution of the Congress and that schedule will be released very soon,” he said.

In an earlier meeting of the CWC, senior leader Rahul Gandhi had pitched strongly for an organisational poll from booth to AICC level. The decision of 22 leaders to demand answers from the leadership over functioning of the organisation had irked the leaders close to the Gandhi family.

Support to farmers

The CWC also extended support to protesting farmers. In her inaugural address, party president Sonia Gandhi condemned the Centre and said the government has shown shocking insensitivity and arrogance going through the charade of consultations with the protestors. “It is abundantly clear that the three laws were prepared in haste and Parliament was consciously denied an opportunity for examining in any meaningful detail their implications and impacts,” she said.

She said the economic situation remains grim and large parts of the economy like MSMEs and the informal sector have been decimated with the Centre refusing to extend a lifeline. “When public expenditure has to be carefully prioritised, it is very painful to find huge amounts of money being allocated and spent on initiatives that can only be described as ‘personal vanity projects’. Equally anguishing is the manner in which the Government has weakened labour and environmental laws and moving ahead with selling off carefully built-up public assets. Panic privatisation has gripped the Government and this is something that the Congress can never accept and support,” she said.

A resolution adopted at the meeting said the three farm laws, when implemented, will affect every citizen of the country as pricing of all food products would be at the mercy of a handful of people. “This is unacceptable in an inclusive India. There is only one demand of farmers and farm labourers — repeal the three objectionable laws. But the Government continues to side-step, malign, deceive and hoodwink the farmers by attempting to tire out, intimidate and divide the farmers. Let the BJP Government understand one unequivocal truth - India’s farmers shall neither bow down, nor be cowed,” it added.

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