Rahul gets CWC nod to forge alliances for 2019

New Delhi: The extended CWC on Sunday authorised Congress president Rahul Gandhi to forge alliances with like-minded parties for the 2019 Lok Sabha election to take on the BJP.

The decision was taken at a meeting of the newly-constituted Congress Working Committee (CWC), Pradesh Congress Committee chiefs and Congress Legislature Party (CLP) members from various states.

The party also authorised Gandhi to constitute a committee to work out alliances with

various national and regional parties to form a grand national alliance.

Thirty-five to 40 leaders spoke at Sunday's meeting where they all stressed that the Congress should play a lead role in forging an anti-BJP front.

Some leaders said Gandhi being the leader of the principal opposition party should be the face of the national alliance.

Asked about party leaders wanting Gandhi to be the face of the alliance, senior Congress leader Ambika Soni said, "Naturally, he is the leader of the main national (opposition) party, and we would want our leader to be the face of the opposition alliance."

Senior party leader and former finance minister P Chidambaram gave a detailed presentation on how the party could be strengthened with the help of allies in various states.

In her address to the newly-constituted Congress Working Committee, which met for the first time under the chairmanship of party chief Rahul Gandhi, Sonia Gandhi also cautioned the people about the "reign of despair and fear" heaped upon India's deprived and poor.

She said the rhetoric of Prime Minister Narendra Modi shows his "desperation" reflecting that the "reverse countdown" of the Modi government has begun.

We are committed to making alliances work, and we are all with Congress President Rahul Gandhi in this endeavour.

We have to rescue our people from a dangerous regime that is compromising with the democracy of India, she said.

After playing second fiddle to HD Kumaraswamy's Janata Dal-Secular to keep the BJP out of power in Karnataka, the Congress president has indicated that his party was willing to work with opposition parties. This approach has the approval of top regional leaders like Mamata Banerjee, who want the smaller parties well-entrenched in states to be accorded respect. In these alliances, Congress needs to take a backseat.

In his address, Sunday, the Congress president, who took charge after 20 years of his mother Sonia Gandhi's leadership, reminded the members of the party's role as the "voice of India" and its responsibility of the 'present and future".