Rahul Gandhi was, is and will remain Congress president: Surjewala
New Delhi: Rahul Gandhi was, is, and will remain the Congress president, party's chief spokesperson Randeep Surjewala said Wednesday, after days of uncertainty over Gandhi's offer to quit the post.
Surjewala made the remarks after senior Congress leaders met here informally under the guidance of A K Antony and discussed the party's strategy and preparation for the upcoming assembly elections in Haryana, Jammu and Kashmir, Jharkhand and Maharashtra.
Gandhi had offered to quit as party chief during a meeting of the Congress Working Committee on May 25 which was called to analyse the party's poor performance in the Lok Sabha polls, in which it managed to win just 52 seats.
The CWC had unanimously rejected his offer to quit but Gandhi was apparently firm on his stand.
"Rahul ji was, is and will remain the Congress president. We have no doubt about it," Surjewala told reporters when asked about the situation arising out of Gandhi's offer to resign.
Senior leaders Ahmed Patel, Mallikarjuna Kharge, Ghulam Nabi Azad, P Chidambaram, KC Venugopal, Surjewala, Jairam Ramesh and Anand Sharma were present in the meeting.
All the leaders present in Wednesday's meeting were members of the core group formed for the Lok Sabha polls.
However, Surjewala clarified that contrary to speculation in the media there was no core group now as all election-related committees ceased to exist.
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Congress using hijab issue to pacify minority anger, alleges Karnataka LoP R Ashoka
Bengaluru: Leader of Opposition in the Assembly R. Ashoka has accused the Congress government of using the hijab issue to placate what he described as discontent among minority voters after the Davanagere by-election.
In a post on X on Wednesday, Ashoka alleged that the state government, instead of addressing issues such as price rise, corruption, farmers’ distress and law and order, was attempting to retain its minority vote base by reviving the hijab issue.
Referring to the 2022 dress code introduced by the BJP government, which prohibited hijab in schools and colleges, Ashoka said the Karnataka High Court had upheld the policy and emphasised the importance of discipline in educational institutions.
He questioned the Congress government’s move to revisit the issue and asked whether setting aside the court-backed policy to benefit one community could be described as secularism.
Ashoka further alleged that while the government was willing to permit hijab, it continued to prohibit saffron shawls.
He accused the government of dividing students on religious lines rather than treating schools and colleges as spaces of equality.
Drawing a comparison with Mamata Banerjee’s government in West Bengal, Ashoka claimed that excessive appeasement politics had harmed the state and warned that the Congress in Karnataka could face a similar political response.
He said voters in Karnataka would teach the Congress a lesson for what he termed “vote-bank politics” and for compromising constitutional and judicial principles.
