‘Get together and find a new chief’: Sonia Gandhi in response to letter on leadership

Congress president Sonia Gandhi has responded to a letter written by a group of party leaders, who sought a complete overhaul of the organisation, saying that all of them should get together and find a new chief as she does not want to carry out the responsibilities any further, people familiar with the development said.

In her response, Gandhi has told them that she was not interested in leading the party once again when the Congress Working Committee (CWC) on August 10 requested her to assume the reins of the organisation again, a senior functionary said on condition of anonymity.

Sonia Gandhi accepted the post of the interim chief after much persuasion only on one condition that the party will find her replacement soon.

The leaders made desperate pleas to her after Rahul Gandhi rejected their calls to withdraw his resignation that he had put in on May 25 in the wake of party's rout in the national elections.

At that time too, Sonia Gandhi mentioned in her response that she had insisted that the new president should be someone from outside the Gandhi family, the functionary quoted from the letter.

For his part, Rahul Gandhi while resigning from the top post had told the CWC in its meeting on May 25, that the party should elect a non-Gandhi as its new president.

The letter has been in the works for at least the past month. Several leaders confirmed that Ghulam Nabi Azad and Kapil Sibal, both Rajya Sabha MPs have taken the main initiative in drafting the letter.