"Different": Sonia Gandhi on son Rahul urging party workers to reveal choice on chief ministers via app
Highlights
- Rahul Gandhi will decide chief ministers for three states today
- Mr Gandhi has urged party men to name choice for chief minister
- He said it was an attempt to connect with the party workers
In the middle of intense negotiations in the Congress for the top job in Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan, Sonia Gandhi, asked who she thought would be chief minister, said: "Please ask Rahul".
Her son and Congress chief Rahul Gandhi has the tough task today of deciding chief ministers for the three big states won by the party on Tuesday.
"We are taking inputs from different people in the party - from MLAs, from workers... We are getting a comprehensive answer to what the Congress party and others feel... of course you have to see a chief minister soon," he told reporters as he left parliament to return to his party office to meet the two sets of leaders fighting for the chief minister's post in Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan - Kamal Nath, Jyotiraditya Scindia, Ashok Gehlot and Sachin Pilot.
On Wednesday, Rahul Gandhi took the unusual step of sending an audio message to over two lakh party workers in Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh and urging them to use an app to reveal their choice of chief minister.
Speaking to NDTV, Rahul Gandhi said it was an attempt to connect with the party workers and get them to communicate, and also an effort to find out who would be suitable for the top post.
Sonia Gandhi, who gave the party reins to her son after 19 years last December, agreed that he was attempting something "different and refreshing". "An experiment, but this is a good experiment," she said.
In the audio message, the Congress President asks workers to name their choice and promises complete confidentiality. "Who should be the chief minister? Please mention just one name. I'm the only person who would know whom you are naming. No one in the party will know. Please speak after the beep," he says.