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Sonia Gandhi was re-elected as the chairperson of the Congress Parliamentary Party at a meeting on Saturday, 1 June. Rahul Gandhi said at the meeting that he will fight BJP every day, reported NDTV.
Post the meeting, he tweeted that though the Congress Party may have just 52 Lok Sabha members, “we will work together like a pride of brave hearted lions to protect our Constitution and Institutions and to fearlessly do our duty as the leading Opposition party.”
The meeting was the first official meeting that Rahul Gandhi attended after he offered to resign as Congress president on 25 May.
Addressing MPs and the Congress parliamentary party meet, President Rahul Gandhi said:
“The Congress Party may have just 52 Lok Sabha members, but we will work together like a pride of brave hearted lions to protect our Constitution and Institutions and to fearlessly do our duty as the leading Opposition party,” tweeted Rahul Gandhi after the Congress Parliamentary Party meeting. “The BJP will have no walkover in Parliament,” he added.
Rahul Gandhi put out a tweet congratulating Sonia Gandhi on being elected leader of the Congress Parliamentary Party.
Congress President Rahul Gandhi and Sonia Gandhi leave after Congress Parliamentary Party (CPP) meeting concludes.
Rahul Gandhi said at the Congress Parliamentary Party meeting that he will fight BJP every day, reported NDTV. He also reminded Congress workers that "each one of you is fighting for the Constitution, for every person in India irrespective of the colour of the skin or belief".
UPA Chairperson Sonia Gandhi has been re-elected as the leader of Congress Parliamentary Party.
Congress President Rahul Gandhi and Sonia Gandhi arrive for Congress Parliamentary Party meeting.
Former union minister, Yashwant Sinha on Wednesday said that the Rahul Gandhi should stand firm on his resignation or else “he will lose further in public estimation.”
“Let the party be run by a presidium or any other arrangement at least for some time,” Sinha added.
Amid speculation of Rahul Gandhi's resignation, the Congress chief on Thursday met Karnataka CM HD Kumaraswamy and NCP leader Sharad Pawar in Delhi.
Both Gandhi and Kumaraswamy will later attend Narendra Modi's oath taking ceremony.
Congress’s Youth Wing passed a motion at its National Office Bearers and Coordinators meeting to request Rahul Gandhi to stay on as party president.
The Indian National Congress will not send spokespersons to television debates for a month, tweeted party MLA Randeep Singh Surjewala.
The Goa Congress and its legislative wing jointly urged Rahul Gandhi to withdraw his resignation from the post of party president and appealed to him to work for strengthening the organisation.
The Goa Pradesh Congress Committee (GPCC) and the Congress Legislature Party (CLP), at a joint meeting , passed an unanimous resolution urging Gandhi to withdraw his resignation from the top post, senior party leader Chandrakant Kavlekar told reporters.
Karnataka Chief Minister H D Kumaraswamy said he would request Rahul Gandhi to continue as Congress president during his visit to New Delhi to attend Narendra Modi's swearing-in as prime minister.
"I will request him (Rahul) to continue. Tomorrow I will be meeting him," Kumaraswamy told reporters when asked about Gandhi's decision to resign as Congress president after the Lok Sabha poll washout.
The Rajasthan Congress executive committee passed a resolution, saying the party should not accept the resignation of its president Rahul Gandhi over the Lok Sabha debacle.
"The pradesh Congress executive committee accepts all those challenges, failures and shortcomings which led to this mandate,"AICC general secretary in-charge of Rajasthan Avinash Pande told reporters.
He said all the members of the executive committee also authorised the Congress president to carry out a "radical organisational changes".
"The Congress has lost the elections but our courage, spirit of struggle and commitment towards our principles is stronger than before," he said.
Delhi Congress chief Sheila Dikshit after meeting Rahul Gandhi at his residence said that she has urged Rahul Gandhi to not resign.
“I have given him the message that he should not resign. We want him to continue on his post, otherwise it will cause us pain. We have conveyed that to him,” she said.
RJD leader Tejashwi Yadav said that he will meet with the Congress party in Delhi to discuss poll debacle.
“The Congress party has invited us for the meeting in Delhi, where election results will be discussed. We are in touch with Rahul Gandhi, Priyanka Gandhi, Ahmed Patel and others. We will participate in the meeting there,” he said.
Former MP V Hanumantha Rao urged Rahul Gandhi to continue to lead the party in times of difficulty.
Rao, a senior Congress leader who had served as PCC president in undivided Andhra Pradesh, also said Gandhi should listen to all sections of partymen to know the views of all.
"I feel it is not justified for our leader Rahul Gandhi to say that 'I cannot continue, you have someone else' (as president) due to the pain of losing recent Lok Sabha elections," Rao told reporters.
"Let's work hard. Rahul Gandhi ji, don't hurt the sentiments of workers," the 70-year-old Congress leader said.
The Rajasthan Congress' executive committee meeting began at the party office on Wednesday.
Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot, Deputy Chief Minister and state Congress president Sachin Pilot, Congress general secretary in charge of Rajasthan Avinash Pande and other leaders are present in the meeting.
The agenda of the meeting is to endorse a resolution passed by the Congress working committee, which refused to accept the resignation of the party president Rahul Gandhi.
Hundreds of Delhi Congress workers, along with former Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit, will assemble outside Congress President Rahul Gandhi's residence on Wednesday, 29 May, to appeal him to withdraw his offer to step down from the party's top post.
A senior Congress leader told IANS that they will assemble at 4 pm.
Karnataka Congress also held protests in Bengaluru on Wednesday, outside PCC office urging Rahul Gandhi to not resign. Tamil Nadu and Rajasthan also passed a resolution against his resignation.
Rajasthan chief minster Ashok Gehlot had spent only a fraction of his time to campaign in Jodhpur for his son Vaibhav Gehlot, officials considered close to the CM claimed on Tuesday to counter allegations that his pre-occupation with his son’s campaign led to the Congress’s devastating loss in the state, reported Hindustan Times.
The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) had won all 25 Lok Sabha seats in the western state, less than six months after the Congress wrested power from Vasundhara Raje-led BJP government.
Delhi Congress chief Sheila Dikshit appealed to party president Rahul Gandhi to withdraw his decision to step down, saying the party has bounced back in the past from challenging circumstances to triumph.
"Under the dynamic leadership of Indira Gandhi, the Congress party fought back from the setback in the 1977 Lok Sabha elections to wrest power two-and-a-half years later, and the party remained in power for several years thereafter," Dikshit said in a statement.
Delhi Congress was firmly with Rahul Gandhi in this challenging time for the party, she said.
"There was no need for the Congress president and the party workers to get disheartened by the setbacks in the Lok Sabha elections," she said, appealing Gandhi to withdraw his decision to step down as party president.
Rahul Gandhi is the best person to pull the Congress out of its predicament following the setback in the Lok Sabha polls, says party leader Shashi Tharoor, while declaring that his party is "alive and kicking" and it is too premature to write its obituary.
The Congress has no time to sit and lick its wounds as it must immediately pick itself up for the upcoming state elections, Tharoor told PTI.
RJD supremo Lalu Prasad on Tuesday termed Congress president Rahul Gandhi's offer to resign ‘suicidal’ and said it would amount to "falling into the BJP's trap".
Gandhi's offer to step down as Congress president would not only be suicidal for his party but for all the social and political forces battling against the Sangh Parivar, he said.
"Rahul's offer to resign is suicidal. Opposition parties had the common goal to dislodge BJP but failed to build a national narrative. The result in a particular election can never alter the reality in as diverse and plural a country as India," he said in a tweet.
DMK chief MK Stalin Tuesday requested Congress president Rahul Gandhi not to step down from his post, saying he has won the hearts of the people though his party lost the general election.
Amid reports that Gandhi was firm on quitting, Stalin spoke to the Congress top leader over the phone and "appealed to him to give up the idea of resigning as party president", the DMK said.
Though the Congress party has suffered a crushing defeat in the Lok Sabha polls, "you have won the hearts of the people", Stalin told Gandhi, the party said.
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Published: 28 May 2019,06:56 PM IST