Congress likely to appoint panel to assist Gandhi
The Indian National Congress is likely to appoint a panel of senior leaders to assist interim chief Sonia Gandhi till she is at the helm of affairs, for though the party maintains all is well but the discontent, evinced by a letter seeking a leadership change, may not have been fully doused.
Sources quoted by IANS said that the party may appoint a panel of four persons to take important decisions.
After a marathon seven-hour long meeting in the wake of a letter demanding change in leadership, the Congress party on Monday decided that Sonia Gandhi will remain party chief, at least for the next six months.
The party has reportedly set a time frame of six months for a session of the All India Congress Committee to search for the new chief as Sonia has made it clear that she is not willing to continue at the post any more.
The Congress working Committee (CWC), the party's highest decision-making body, has authorised the Congress president to affect "necessary organisational changes" that she may deem appropriate to take on the challenges.
Hinting at the committee, several leaders said that Sonia Gandhi will be assisted by four persons so that the consultation process is more wide than what she had done in past while going for treatment abroad.
The meeting came weeks after around 23 top Congress leaders wrote a letter to Sonia Gandhi on the issue of leadership change and elections in the CWC.
The letter called for an urgent need for "full time and effective leadership", which is both "visible'' and "active'' and an "urgent establishment of an institutional leadership mechanism" to "collectively guide the party's revival''. It also asked for decentralisation of power, elections in the party at all levels and empowerment of its state units.
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