Elections for Congress party president to be held in September 2022: Sources

The CWC met to finalise the schedule for a membership drive which will include choosing a new party chief to replace Sonia Gandhi as interim president.

New Delhi: Elections for appointing a full-time Congress president will be held in September 2022, sources said amid a meeting of the Congress Working Committee in Delhi. The CWC - the party's highest decision-making body - met on Saturday to discuss issues like party leadership, and finalise the schedule for a membership drive. 

Gandhi asserted that every member of the party wants a revival of the Congress, but that requires unity and keeping the party's interests paramount. "Above all, it requires self-control and discipline," she said in her opening remarks.

In an apaprent dig at the dissenting Congress leaders the G23, Congress chief Sonia Gandhi on Saturday said she is a full-time, hands-on party president and there is no need for leaders to speak to her through the media.

"I am, if you will allow me to say so, a full-time and hands-on Congress president," Gandhi said. Though Congress leader Ghulam Nabi Azad, during CWC meeting said, "We have full faith in Sonia Gandhi ji and nobody is questioning her leadership." 

The CWC meeting was attended by former chief Rahul Gandhi, Congress general secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra, Congress chief ministers Ashok Gehlot of Rajasthan, Bhupesh Baghel of Chhattisgarh and Charanjit Channi of Punjab.

Sonia Gandhi, who has been the interim President of the party since Rahul Gandhi's resignation in 2019, is likely to continue in that post till the internal polls conclude.