Rahul Gandhi Continues to be Congress President; Party Source Denies Motilal Vora's Appointment as Interim Chief

New Delhi, July 3: Rahul Gandhi will continue to hold the post of Congress President until the Congress Working Committee (CWC) accepts his resignation, a senior party source told news agency ANI. The source also dismissed reports of Motilal Vora taking over as interim chief of the Congress party. There are reports that Motilal Vora likely to be interim president of Congress till the time the party finds Rahul Gandhi's successor.

Denying reports that he will be interim party chief, Vora said he doesn't have any such information. "We will once again request Rahul Gandhi to continue as the president of the party, whenever the Congress Working Committee holds a meeting," the senior Congress leader was quoted as saying. Earlier today, Gandhi shared a letter on his Twitter handle and said he has resigned as Congress President and took the blame for the party's rout in the Lok Sabha elections where it could win only 52 of the 542 seats.

"As President of the Congress party, I am responsible for the loss of the 2019 election. Accountability is critical for the future growth of our party," he said in a letter that was put on his Twitter account which no longer described him as the Congress President. The letter further said: "Rebuilding the party requires hard decisions and numerous people will have to be made accountable for the failure of 2019. It would be unjust to hold others accountable but ignore my own responsibility as President of the party." Rahul Gandhi Reveals Who Will Decide on Next Congress Chief.

In his four-page letter, Gandhi said the RSS, the ideological backbone of the BJP, had succeeded in capturing the country's institutional structure. "A free and fair election requires the neutrality of a country's institutions -- an election cannot be fair without arbiters, a free press, an independent judiciary and a transparent Election Commission that is objective and neutral. Nor can an election be free if only one party has a complete monopoly on financial resources," the letter stated.

Gandhi said: "We didn't fight a political party in the election. Rather, we fought the entire machinery of the Indian state, every institution of which was marshalled against the opposition. He alleged that Prime Minister Narendra Modi's victory "does not negate the breath of corruption allegations against him, no amount of money and propaganda can ever hide the light of the truth".

(The above story first appeared on LatestLY on Jul 03, 2019 07:32 PM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website latestly.com).