The Congress Working Committee (CWC) has decided that there will be a new elected party president by June 2021, party leader KC Venugopal said at a press briefing soon after the CWC meeting was held on Friday, 22 January.
Earlier, reports had said that the Congress will be conducting the organisational elections to elect the party president after the Assembly elections in states such as Tamil Nadu and West Bengal.
The CWC on Friday also passed three resolutions – one in support of protesting farmers and calling for the repeal of the three contentious farm laws; another thanking scientists and researchers for developing COVID-19 vaccines in record time; and the third on the Arnab Goswami WhatsApp chats leak row, demanding a probe by a Joint Parliamentary Committee (JPC) into the 'breach of national security'.
What Sonia Gandhi Said at CWC Meet
Earlier, Congress President Sonia Gandhi said in her opening remarks at the CWC meeting on Friday that those who give certificates of patriotism and nationalism to others now stand totally exposed, amid the controversy over the purported WhatsApp chats of Republic TV Editor-in-Chief Arnab Goswami, that allegedly made references to the 2019 Pulwama terror attack and the Balakot airstrikes.
"Very recently, there have been very disturbing reports on how national security has been so thoroughly compromised... Yet the silence from the government's side on what has been revealed has been deafening. Those who give certificates of patriotism and nationalism to others now stand totally exposed," Gandhi was quoted as saying at the meeting.
The purported WhatsApp chats of Goswami are part of the supplementary charge sheet filed by the Mumbai Police in the fake TRP scam case.
There are around 500 pages of WhatsApp conversations from former Broadcast Audience Research Council (BARC) CEO Partho Dasgupta’s phone annexed with the charge sheet, including alleged conversations with Goswami.
‘Shocking Insensitivity’
On the protests against the farm laws, the Congress chief on Friday said the government has shown “shocking insensitivity and arrogance going through the charade of consultations”.
“It is abundantly clear that the three laws were prepared in haste and the Parliament was consciously denied an opportunity for examining in any meaningful detail, their implications and impacts,” she said, while reiterating her party’s stand of rejecting the three laws in question.
Thousands of farmers have been protesting against the three laws near the borders of Delhi-NCR for almost two months now. Ten rounds of talks between the protesting unions and the government have failed to break the deadlock.
On COVID And Economy
The interim Congress chief, at the CWC meeting on Friday, also slammed the government over the management of the COVID-19 pandemic, saying it has "inflicted untold suffering on the people".
On the state of the economy, she said, "The economic situation remains grim and large parts of the economy like MSMEs and the informal sector have been decimated with the government refusing to extend a lifeline."
“Panic privatisation has gripped the government and this is something that the Congress party can never accept and support.”Sonia Gandhi at CWC meet
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