Congress to have new elected president by June 2021

New Delhi, Jan 22: The Congress party will have a new elected president in June 2021, and Sonia Gandhi will remain as the interim party chief for the five state assembly elections to be held by May.

After a three-and-a-half-hour meeting, which was stormy at times, the Congress Working Committee(CWC), the party's highest policy making body, authorised incumbent chief Sonia Gandhi to schedule the internal elections after the conclusion of assembly polls in five states due to be held in April-May.

"The CWC decided that there will be an elected Congress president by June 2021 at any cost," AICC general secretary K C Venugopal said, adding that the little change of schedule depending on the timing of the state elections will be decided soon.

Reports said the party's Central Election Authority had proposed the holding of polls for electing its president and the AICC session on May 29 and the CWC discussed the dates, but authorised Sonia Gandhi to schedule them after the assembly polls.

Sonia Gandhi took over as interim Congress president after Rahul Gandhi resigned in the wake of the party's Lok Sabha debacle in May 2019.

There have been demands from a section of the Congress leaders for having a full-time and active party president and an organisational overhaul.

The CWC had in its earlier meeting decided to hold organisational elections, following a storm in the party in August last year over a letter to Sonia Gandhi by a group of 23 leaders including Ghulam Nabi Azad, Anand Sharma, Bhupinder Hooda, Prithviraj Chavan, Kapil Sibal, Manish Tewari and Mukul Wasnik raising these issues.