Sonia Gandhi has become the interim Congress president, the party's top decision-making body, the Congress Working Committee, decided today after a meeting to choose her son Rahul Gandhi's successor. The decision signalled a failure of the party to pick a chief outside the Gandhi family that has led it for most of its 130-year-old history.
Earlier, veteran leader Mukul Wasnik had emerged as the frontrunner for the post left vacant after Rahul Gandhi quit in May, owning responsibility for the party's national election debacle.
In its 134-year history, India's oldest political party has mostly had a member of the Nehru-Gandhi family in charge.
Sources said the sub-committees wanted Rahul Gandhi to continue as the party chief.
Earlier today, Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi refused to take part in the selection process, saying they did not want to complicate the issue or "play favourites". "It is a mistake that our names were added to the (zonal) groups," Sonia Gandhi told reporters.
