Sonia re-elected CPP chairperson

New Delhi: Congress president Sonia Gandhi was re-elected as the Congress Parliamentary Party (CPP) Chairperson on Saturday. She will now take a call on who should be the Floor Leader in each of the two Houses of Parliament. In the Lok Sabha, the Congress is struggling to get the status of Leader of Opposition for its floor leader, since it does not have the required 10 per cent of the House strength to qualify for the same post.

Sources stated that Sonia Gandhi may eventually herself become the Floor Leader in the Lower House given the fact that some leaders including Milind Deora considered close to Rahul Gandhi has raised questions against him. Moreover, Sonia Gandhi, too is protective about her son, knowing that the ruling dispensation will leave no stone unturned to corner him. In the Rajya Sabha, however, where the Congress has the required strength to qualify for Leader of Opposition, there is a close fight between A K Antony and Ghulam Nabi Azad. The term of Azad, however, expires in February, 2015 that may give an advantage to Antony.

At the CPP meeting, the name of Sonia Gandhi as CPP Chairperson was proposed by Mallikarjun Kharge and seconded by Mohsina Kidwai, besides others. The meeting was attended by outgoing Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, Congress Vice-President Rahul Gandhi and MPs belonging to both the Houses of Parliament.

The Congress President, in her address, tried to lift the morale of the diffident MPs by telling them that they still had a “viable support base upon which to build” the party. She informed that the Congress was second with 10.69 crore votes compared to the BJP’s 17.16 crore votes. “Although our tally is about 62 per cent of the BJP’s, given our system of first-past-the-post winners, our share of seats has dropped to less than 15 per cent of the seats won by the BJP.” She exhorted the MPs that they should take strength from the fact that these voters believe in “our idea of India.”

The Congress president reminded her MPs that though their strength was small in Lok Sabha, but they were still the largest party in Rajya Sabha. “Together, the CPP is still a formidable group and can function as a formidable Opposition,” she remarked. Giving an insight into the future functioning of the Congress, where it wants to cobble up all the secular-minded forces against the Modi government in Parliament, Sonia Gandhi said, “We can and will work together with like-minded parties to strengthen the watchful role of the parliamentary Opposition.”