Not invited for CWC meeting despite being permanent member: PC Chacko

PC Chacko claims he was not invited for CWC meeting despite being its permanent member.

Senior Congress leader PC Chacko has alleged that he was not invited for the crucial Congress Working Committee meeting held on Monday in the wake of a letter by 23 senior party leaders to Sonia Gandhi over various issues including the leadership. Chacko said that despite being a permanent member of the CWC, the highest decision making body in Congress, he was not invited for the meeting.

“They are all in Delhi, just a phone call away and a meeting. I sent a message to Sonia Gandhi… There is a lot of adhocism prevailing in Delhi. I am a permanent member of the CWC but I was not invited,” he told ANI.

Chacko said that had he been invited to the meeting, “probably, I could have given a solution”.

Slamming those who wrote a letter to Sonia, Chacko said that his party colleagues should have avoided writing a letter and releasing it to the media before the CWC meeting.

“Ghulam Nabi Azad, Mukul Wasnik, Ahmed Patel also signed the letter, Ahmed Patel is supposed to be the political advisor of Sonia Gandhi. There is a lot of complication in this but the ultimate point is that it invited a bad image and hurt Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi,” he said.

He suggested that the leaders should have flagged their grievances and discussed them at the meeting instead of writing a letter which courted controversy.

The former Lok Sabha MP also hinted that it was wrong to wait after Rahul Gandhi resigned as party president last year after the loss in general elections. He said that senior leaders could have sat together with Rahul Gandhi and taken a decision about an alternative.

“50% who wrote the letter are CWC members,” he said. “They can very well say there that we want a full-time president as Sonia Gandhi has health problems and Rahul ji is not willing to accept the role…so we should think about the third person.”

Chacko, however, reiterated that Rahul Gandhi should again start leading the party. “He is the right person to lead the anti-Modi campaign in the country and coordinate with other parties.”