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Updated: Jul 09, 2019 23:47 IST

Congress leader Janardan Dwivedi on Tuesday questioned the selection process of a new party chief. He said Rahul Gandhi should have formulated a mechanism to suggest the name of his successor after stepping down as the Congress chief. Dwivedi said technically, and as per the party’s constitution, Gandhi is still the Congress president.

“Who is selecting the new Congress president? Who has given them that authority?” asked Dwivedi, who has held key party posts. “As far as I understand the Congress’s constitution, Rahul Gandhi continues to be the party president. Probably, on that basis, some fresh appointments have also been made,” he told reporters in Delhi.

Dwivedi said convention and norms should be followed in electing a new Congress president. “If he [Rahul Gandhi] continues to be the party chief, on what basis is the election of the new Congress president being done. Who is doing it?” he asked.

He said credibility of the panel holding informal discussions about selecting the Congress chief would have been more if it was set up formally. “Gandhi should have constituted some mechanism to select the new party chief,” he said.

If Rahul Gandhi forms a formal panel, Dwivedi said, it can hold talks with party workers and leaders across the country before suggesting a name for the post of the Congress president. The Congress Working Committee, the party’s highest decision-making body, could then ratify the appointment, he said. He cited the example of Sonia Gandhi forming a four-member panel to look after party affairs when she had gone abroad for her treatment in 2011.

Dwivedi was one of those four members. Rahul Gandhi, AK Antony and Ahmed Patel were the other members.

“There is a myth that an election is held for the Congress president, as that has been done on only four or five occasions in the 134-year history of the party,” Dwivedi said.

Separately, West Bengal Congress chief Somen Mitra submitted his resignation from the post taking responsibility for the party’s poor show in the Lok Sabha elections.

Congress’s West Bengal in-charge Gaurav Gogoi refused to accept Mitra’s resignation and requested him to continue.