Amid a looming political crisis in the Congress party, veteran Congress leader Natwar Singh has endorsed Priyanka Gandhi Vadra’s name for the post of party president.
Praising Priyanka for her visit to Sonbhadra to meet victims of a firing incident, the former external affairs minister told news agency ANI that if anyone was elected the president from outside the Gandhi family, the Congress party would split within 24 hours.
"It is unfortunate that the country's 134-year old party does not have a party president. I do not think apart from the Gandhi family, anyone should be elected as the president. You must have witnessed what she did in a village in Uttar Pradesh. It was amazing. She stayed there and achieved what she wanted to," he said.
When asked if Priyanka Gandhi would be elected as the party president, he said, "It will depend on Priyanka because her brother [Rahul Gandhi] had said that nobody from the Gandhi family will become the Congress president. Now, the family will have to reverse the decision and only they can do it."
The Congress party plunged into a political crisis after it faced a humiliating defeat in the Lok Sabha elections followed by the resignation of Rahul Gandhi from the post of party chief.
Following Rahul’s resignation, several party leaders backed Priyanka’s name for the top post, which has since been lying vacant.
Earlier, former prime minister Lal Bahadur Shastri's son Anil Shastri had said that Priyanka Gandhi Vadra should be made the Congress president as no one other than her is "100 per cent acceptable".
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