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Updated: Aug 11, 2019 02:12 IST

United Progressive Alliance (UPA) chairperson Sonia Gandhi’s terse remark at Saturday’s Congress Working Committee (CWC) meeting triggered emotional outbursts from party leaders as they pleaded with Rahul Gandhi to take back his resignation.

As CWC members cajoled Rahul Gandhi to reconsider his decision saying no one else was capable of occupying the top post, Sonia Gandhi intervened. “There are many people and some of them are even present in this room who want to become the Congress party president,” she remarked.

The meeting was held in the conference room at the All India Congress Committee (AICC) headquarters at 24 Akbar Road in Delhi.

The remark prompted emotional responses from the CWC members with majority of them, including Mukul Wasnik and Mallikarjun Kharge, saying none of them was in the race.

Wasnik had emerged as a frontrunner among the possible successors to Rahul Gandhi. The other names doing the rounds were Kharge, Sushil Kumar Shinde and KC Venugopal.

On another occasion, while once again refusing to withdraw his resignation, Rahul Gandhi asked the CWC members about their response in case of any eventuality.

“Suppose something would have happened to me, what would you have done then? Would it be the end of the Congress? You would have been forced to look for a new party president,” a CWC member quoted Rahul Gandhi as having said.

This again resulted in emotional outbursts. CWC members jostled among themselves to persuade Rahul Gandhi, insisting there was no option but him to lead the grand old party.

Tariq Hameed Karra from Jammu and Kashmir said the CWC was not “seeking a president but a leader” who would take the party out of the current turmoil. He added that only a member of the Nehru-Gandhi family would be able to do so.

“The Nehru-Gandhi family has always been a unifying force in the Congress and played a pivotal role. If you (Rahul Gandhi) continue to insist on stepping down, the Congress will see major fragmentation,” another CWC member quoted Karra as having said in the meeting.

Karra also praised Rahul Gandhi for having set “high standards of morality” by resigning from the post but questioned why others in the party did not follow suit.

“Is it only you who has to set this example of accountability? What about others? Why hasn’t any other person in the Congress resigned? You fought the Lok Sabha elections as a one-man army with no support from any quarter,” Karra said.

Congress leader in the Lok Sabha Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury and former Union minister KH Muniyappa requested Rahul Gandhi with folded hands to revisit his resignation.

Youth Congress president BV Srinivas triggered laughter in the room when he said that “instead of suggesting an allopathic doctor to a patient, you are referring him to a veterinary doctor”.