Sheila Dikshit told NDTV that the Congress will not accept Rahul Gandhi’s resignation
Rahul Gandhi remains adamant about quitting as Congress president but scores of party workers will go to his Delhi home to persuade him to change his mind, senior leader Sheila Dikshit said on Wednesday. Sheila Dikshit, a three-time chief minister of Delhi, said she would also be among Congress leaders who would try to meet Rahul Gandhi at 4 pm.
“Rahul Gandhi is adamant about resigning. But we will not accept his resignation at all. He has done good work. Winning and losing are part of life, but it is important to keep fighting,” Sheila Dikshit, who was among the seven Congress candidates who lost in Delhi, told NDTV.
“We have lost and we are analysing our defeat. We will remedy our mistakes. We lost during Indira Gandhi’s time too. Today we will go with party workers to placate him,” said the former Delhi Chief Minister, who is seen as close to the Gandhi family.
Rahul Gandhi, at a Congress Working Committee meeting he called on Saturday after the party’s massacre in the national election, said he had decided to step down as party president, a post he took over from his mother Sonia Gandhi in December 2017. He also put forth a biting critique of veterans who, he alleged, had put their sons before the party’s interest and thus cost the Congress in big states like Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan, which it had won just five months ago.
Since then, despite pleading and entreaties by party men, Rahul Gandhi has refused to go back on his resignation and has firmly asked the Congress to pick a new president, that too a non-Gandhi. For the Congress, which has mostly had a Nehru-Gandhi at the helm, such a prospect is unthinkable.
Several state Congress units have passed resolutions urging Rahul Gandhi to take back his resignation offer.