NEW DELHI: ‘Rahul Gandhi went to Punjab and made the announcement that Charanjit Singh Channi will be the Chief Minister. In what capacity did he do that?’, asked Congress G23 leader Kapil Sibal, in an interview given to a national daily. Sibal has come forward with sharp criticisms against Rahul Gandhi and the Nehru family. Despite his resignation, Rahul Gandhi still remains the Congress president. The Congress leadership is living in a cuckoo land. Some of them are trying to confine the party to one house, he alleged.

“We are assuming now that Rahul Gandhi is not the president of the Congress and Sonia Gandhi is. Rahul Gandhi went to Punjab and made the announcement that Charanjit Singh Channi will be the chief minister. In what capacity did he do that? He is not the president of the party, but he takes all the decisions. He is already the de facto president. So why are they asking him that he should take back the reins of power? So they want the de facto president to become the de jure president but it doesn’t matter, he is the de facto president,” he said.

“It is purely my personal view that today at least I want a ‘Sab ki Congress’. Some others want a ‘Ghar ki Congress’. I certainly don’t want a ‘Ghar ki Congress’. And I will fight for a ‘Sab ki Congress’ till my last breath. This ‘Sab ki Congress’ means just not getting together, but getting together all those people in India who don’t want the BJP,” he said.

“We have been going downhill since 2014. We have lost state after state. Even where we succeeded we are not being able to keep our flock together. In the meantime, there has been an exodus of some key people.Those who had the confidence of the leadership are moving away from the Congress. In the 2022 assembly elections too, people who were close to the leadership left them. I was looking at the figures. It is really interesting to note that since 2014 about 177 MPs and MLAs and 222 candidates have left the Congress. No other political party has seen this kind of exodus”, he added.

Meantime, senior leader M Veerappa Moily has said that Sonia Gandhi should take full control of the Congress as the party loyalists have become a casualty as opportunists have crept into the organization.

“Introspection by the party on the reasons for the electoral defeat was needed. However, none of the Congress leaders or workers should become panicky and the unity of Congress cadres at this juncture is the need of the nation”, he added. Moily, a former G23 leader, has currently been distancing himself from the group.

“I am not worried about the loss either in Lok Sabha polls or the assembly elections, but is concerned about the remarks made by some of the party leaders who he claimed always targeted the top leadership of the party. The Congress party leadership cannot be associated with dynastic rule. The members of the Gandhi family had the backing of the people over the years, right from Jawaharlal Nehru's time. Majority of Lok Sabha members not only of the Congress Party but also other secular parties projected Sonia Gandhi to be the prime minister. She could have become the prime minister if she had chosen to. Rahul Gandhi was also asked to become a minister but he was also not willing. They chose the greatest economist ever produced by the country – Dr Manmohan Singh for the post”, he said.