New Delhi:
A day after criticising Rahul Gandhi, senior Congress leader Salman Khurshid has targetted those who 'walked away' from Congress when 'the chips were down'. Khurshid also said that he was not like them and will not leave the party despite ‘pain and concern’ over its current state.
“I have very deep pain and concern about where we are today as a party. No matter what happens we won’t leave the party. We aren’t like those who got everything from the party and when the chips were down, things were difficult they left the party and walked away,” Khurshid said on Wednesday.
Former external affairs minister Khurshid on Tuesday said Rahul Gandhi’s decision to quit as party chief after the 2019 Lok Sabha election drubbing was the biggest reason the Grand Old Party could not bounce back. Khurshid said that after the Lok Sabha election defeat, Congress didn’t get together to analyse the reasons behind their disastrous performance.
"We haven't really got together to analyse why we got defeated. Our biggest problem is our leader has walked away," Khurshid said, adding that "It has kind of left a vacuum."
The senior Congress leader said that although Sonia Gandhi stepped in to fill that vacuum but she has given enough indications that she is nothing more than a “stop-gap arrangement”.
On August 10, Sonia Gandhi was appointed as the interim chief of the Congress party pending the election for the permanent chief after months of confusion over Rahul Gandhi's leadership.
Sonia Gandhi, who first became the Congress chief in 1998, had handed over the baton to her son Rahul Gandhi in 2017 after leading the party for nearly two decades. However, Rahul Gandhi didn't have a desirable tenure as Congress chief. He quit the post following the Congress party's abysmal show in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections.
