Unfair on Sonia, Congress must find full-term chief: Shashi Tharoor

NEW DELHI: Exactly a year to the day when Sonia Gandhi completed a year in office as interim president of Congress, Lok Sabha MP Shashi Tharoor has said it was “unfair” to her to carry the “interim chief’s burden indefinitely”.
Speaking to a news agency, Tharoor also said Congress must expedite the process of finding a full-term president to arrest the growing public perception that the party is “adrift and rudderless”, while adding that he thinks Rahul Gandhi has the “mettle, capability and aptitude to once again lead the party”. The Thiruvananthapuram MP, however, proposed that if Sonia Gandhi does not wish to continue as president, Congress must “take action” to elect a new president. “We also need to arrest the growing public perception, fuelled by a dismissive media, that Congress is adrift and rudderless, incapable of taking up the challenge of a credible national Opposition,” the former Union minister said.
Congress needs to urgently address this by expediting the process of finding a full-term president, through a participatory and democratic process that will offer the winning candidate a legitimate mandate and the credibility that will be indispensable in ushering in much needed organisational and structural revival of the party, Tharoor added.