Sonia Gandhi has been once again elected leader of the Congress Parliamentary Party (CPP) at a meeting of party lawmakers at the Central Hall of Parliament on Saturday. The meeting was attended by the party’s 52 newly elected Lok Sabha MPs and Rajya Sabha members. Sonia Gandhi’s name was proposed by former prime minister Manmohan Singh and seconded by Jharkhand MP Jothimani S and Kerala MP K Sudhakaran. Sonia Gandhi, in her speech, lauded the role of Congress president Rahul Gandhi during the Lok Sabha polls. “Rahul led the “party from the front with dynamism”, she said, adding that the party with its 52 MPs in Lok Sabha will play the role of the opposition sincerely and raise people’s issues. Congress president Rahul Gandhi also congratulated Sonia Gandhi and said, “Congratulations to Smt Sonia Gandhi on being elected Leader of the Congress Parliamentary Party. Under her leadership, the Congress will prove to be a strong & effective opposition party, that will fight to defend the Constitution of India.” Sources said the Congress Parliamentary Party authorised Sonia Gandhi to pick the party’s leader in Lok Sabha. She has convened a meeting of senior leaders in the afternoon to decide on the matter. “Smt. Sonia Gandhi elected as the leader of Congress Parliamentary Party! She says, ‘we thank the 12.13 Cr voters for reposing faith in the Congress Party’,” Congress’s chief spokesperson Randeep Surjewala tweeted on Saturday. Sonia Gandhi, who represents Uttar Pradesh’s Rae Bareli in Lok Sabha, is the chairperson of the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance (UPA).
The Congress meeting was the first official meeting that Congress president Rahul Gandhi will attend after the May 25 meeting of the party’s working committee, where he had offered to quit as Congress chief. The CWC has already rejected his offer to resign and unanimously passed a resolution authorising him to bring structural changes in the party at all levels in a bid to revamp it. At the meet, Rahul Gandhi said the Congress may have just 52 MPs in the Lok Sabha but they are strong enough to take on the BJP. Speaking at the CPP meeting, Rahul Gandhi said, “We are 52 MPs. I guarantee you that these 52 MPs will fight against BJP every single inch. We are enough to make BJP jump everyday.” “Every Congress member must remember that each one of you is fighting for the Constitution, for every person in India irrespective of the color of his skin or belief,” Rahul Gandhi said.
