Without Gandhi family, Congress and democracy will weaken: Anil Shastri

The knives are out between the loyalists and dissenters in the Congress as the rebel G-23 group has stepped up its attack on the Gandhi family and the loyalists have come out in strong defence.

Anil Shastri, the Congress leader in a tweet in Hindi on Tuesday said, "Those who don't want the Gandhi family to lead the party don't know that without them the party will weaken and a weak Congress will be fatal for the democracy."

Later talking to IANS he said, "There is need for course correction but this should be done with the Gandhis at the helm, and the Congress can't compete on communal agenda of the BJP and those who are attacking the party should tell how they want to take the party forward."

 

Shastri said, "The BJP invokes emotion but the Congress is committed to a certain ideology and we have to move forward with it."

Talking to IANS, Sandeep Dikshit a former MP said, "The Congress President should have accessibility, acceptability and accountability."

He said that accessibility to people and party leaders, acceptability within the public and accountability in wake of the losses should be there for the president and this should also be the norm for the state chief ministers and state chiefs.

He said that the family is not acceptable to the people and this is evident in continued failures in poll after poll, and they are not accessible to anyone, including the party leaders.

"In 90 per cent cases, Congress is pitted against Congress who are in turn backed by top AICC leaders. These leaders are full of arrogance and have held on to the big posts for long," said Dikshit.

 

He alleged that the sycophants have led the party to the peril.

While saying that members like him are not going to leave the party and will remain and fight back, he said, "We have no plans to leave but fight for revival."

The rebel group is planning to meet on Wednesday and chalk out a future strategy.

Days after the Congress working committee meeting, the party's senior leader Kapil Sibal on Tuesday demanded that the 'Gandhis should step aside from the leadership role and give a chance to someone else to lead the party'.

Since the poll debacle of 2014 the Congress has lost elections continuously except on a few occasions, he said, and added that "the CWC has reposed faith in the party leadership but those outside the CWC feel otherwise as many have left the party and new leaders should be given a chance to lead the party".

Sibal is one of the signatories of the letter written to Sonia Gandhi for bringing reforms within the party, but in the CWC meet on Sunday sources say that Ghulam Nabi Azad and Anand Sharma did not raise the issue of leadership change.

Sonia Gandhi in the CWC on Sunday had offered to step aside from the leadership along with Rahul Gandhi and Priyanka Gandhi Vadra, but was turned down by the CWC.

The Congress Working Committee on Sunday reposed faith in her.

--IANS

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