The view that a young leader should succeed Rahul Gandhi as Congress President is fast gaining traction with the party’s youth cadre batting for a gen-next chief over the old guard.

The young brigade’s preference for youth over experience got a boost when Punjab Chief Minister Amarinder Singh on Saturday asserted that a young person should be chosen as Gandhi’s successor.

Though no Congress leader or worker has publicly put forward any name, party insiders said Rajasthan Deputy Chief Minister Sachin Pilot and senior Congress leader Jyotiraditya Scindia could be the front-runners for the top job in the Grand Old Party.

Pilot, 41, led the party to victory in the Assembly polls as the Rajasthan Pradesh Congress chief and is experienced in grassroots-level organisation.

Scindia, 48, is also seen as a dynamic leader with mass appeal though he could not win in Madhya Pradesh in the Lok Sabha election.

The focus swivelled to the young brigade on Sunday when Scindia made public his resignation as general secretary in-charge western Uttar Pradesh and Milind Deora quit as Mumbai Congress chief. On Saturday, Keshav Chand Yadav resigned as Youth Congress president.

All three resigned citing ‘accountability’ for the Party’s Lok Sabha poll debacle.

Announcing his resignation as Mumbai Congress president, 42-year-old Deora said he was looking forward to playing a role at the national level to help stabilise the party.

The resignations citing accountability have put party veterans in a spot with pressure mounting on them to follow suit.

Related Topics
comment COMMENT NOW