Congress will not survive a ‘puppet president‘, warns Prithviraj Chavan

While the Congress Working Committee (CWC) has finally decided to hold the election for the party’s full-time president following senior Congressman Ghulam Nabi Azad’s resignation, former Maharashtra Chief Minister Prithviraj Chavan on Sunday said that the party would not survive if a “puppet president” was elected.

Mr. Chavan further said that if Congress leader Rahul Gandhi did not wish to become the party president, then alternative arrangements must be made and a new president be elected through elections.

“If Rahul Gandhi has said that neither he, nor anyone from his family will be Congress president, then why he should not be believed? If he does not wish to be president, then another alternative arrangement will have to be made,” he said.

Mr. Chavan, who is the MLA from Karad South constituency in Satara district, welcomed the CWC’s decision to hold elections.

“Steps are needed to save the party and imposing a puppet president will not help. We need a vibrant democratic party to combat the BJP led by Narendra Modi and Amit Shah which is taking the country towards dictatorship,” said the former Maharashtra CM, who is a member of the dissenting ‘G-23’ group of senior partymen who have hit out at the ‘coterie culture’ plaguing the party.

He further said that the party had been suffering successive electoral defeats as the party was not adhering to its internal constitution and demanded holding of elections at every level of the organization in the Congress.

“The Congress has a historic responsibility today to provide an alternative as a credible opposition party. But if we provide unsuccessful, then no one can stop Modi from returning to power,” Mr. Chavan said, while observing that despite the BJP gaining only around 35% votes, it remained triumphant because of the fragmentation of opposition votes.  

Mr. Azad, in his letter to party president Sonia Gandhi, had sternly rebuked Rahul Gandhi and held him responsible for destroying the party’s consultative mechanism.

Speaking on Mr. Azad’s ‘shock resignation’, Mr. Chavan called it “extremely unfortunate” and that it had upset him personally.

Mr. Chavan further said that there had no serious introspection despite the party suffering successive Lok Sabha defeats (in 2014 and 2019) and setbacks in several states including Punjab and Goa.