New Delhi: Sonia Gandhi was once again elected leader of the Congress Parliamentary Party (CPP) at a meeting of party MPs at the Central Hall of Parliament on Saturday.
The meeting was attended by the party’s 52 newly elected Lok Sabha MPs and Rajya Sabha members, besides members of the Congress Working Committee and other senior leaders. Gandhi, who represents Uttar Pradesh’s Rae Bareli in Lok Sabha, is the chairperson of the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance (UPA). Sources said the Congress Parliamentary Party authorised Gandhi to pick the party’s leader in Lok Sabha. She has convened a meeting of senior leaders in the afternoon to decide on the matter.
“Smt. Sonia Gandhi elected as the leader of Congress Parliamentary Party! She says, ‘we thank the 12.13 Cr voters for reposing faith in the Congress Party’,” Congress’s chief spokesperson Randeep Surjewala tweeted. Gandhi’s name was proposed by former prime minister Manmohan Singh and all the MPs endorsed. Gandhi, in her speech, lauded the role of Congress president Rahul Gandhi during the Lok Sabha polls. Rahul led the “party from the front with dynamism”, she said, adding that the party with its 52 MPs in Lok Sabha will play the role of the opposition sincerely and raise people’s issues.
“Congratulations to Smt Sonia Gandhi on being elected Leader of the Congress Parliamentary Party. Under her leadership, the Congress will prove to be a strong & effective opposition party, that will fight to defend the Constitution of India,” the Congress president tweeted.
This was the first official meeting that Congress president Rahul Gandhi attended after the May 25 meeting of the party’s working committee, where he had offered to quit as Congress chief. The CWC has already rejected his offer to resign and unanimously passed a resolution authorising him to bring structural changes in the party at all levels in a bid to revamp it.