The Congress Working Committee (CWC) also decided to convene the All India Congress Committee session at the earliest possible time to start the process for selecting a new party president, reports our New Delhi correspondent.
The CWC meeting was called to discuss an August 7 letter by 20 senior leaders, including Ghulam Nabi Azad, Kapil Sibal, Shashi Tharoor and Anand Sharma, which called for sweeping changes in the party to remove uncertainty over the leadership and arrest a drift that has demoralised workers.
At the stormy seven-hour meeting of the CWC in New Delhi, Sonia is said to have offered to step down as party chief but she was urged to stay on.
At the meeting, Sonia also asked the party to start the process of looking for her successor, sources said.
Leaders praised her leadership and stressed that she or Rahul Gandhi should remain at the helm. Sources say not a single leader expressed any criticism of the Gandhi leadership as the meeting followed predictable lines, they said.
Several Congress leaders were understood to have suggested in the meeting that if Sonia Gandhi did not want to continue, Rahul Gandhi should return to the post from where he quit last year in the wake of Congress’s worst debacle in general election in May last year.
Though a large section of Congress leaders backed Sonia at the virtual meeting of the CWC, the sharp divides within the party were clear and appeared to deepen at some points as the day progressed.
Former prime minister Manmohan Singh led the demand for Sonia Gandhi continuing as Congress president and leader after leader echoed him while attacking the letter writers, particularly senior leaders Ghulam Nabi Azad, Anand Sharma and Kapil Sibal, sources said.
Former Finance Minister P Chidambaram suggested the holding of a virtual AICC session to start the process of holding elections for a new party chief.
Former Congress President Rahul Gandhi, it is learnt, launched a sharp attack against the signatories to the letter, questioning its timing as well as the fact they went public with their grievances. He also rued the fact that the letter seeking sweeping changes to the party organisation and elections to the CWC was written when Sonia Gandhi was in hospital and the party was battling a political crisis in Rajasthan state where young leader Sachin Pilot had raised a banner of revolt against Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot.
