The Congress will persuade Rahul Gandhi to return as the party’s chief as no else in the outfit has a similar pan-India appeal, Rajya Sabha MP Mallikarjun Kharge said on Friday, according to PTI.

Kharge made the statement two days ahead of a meeting of the Congress Working Committee, during which the party’s highest decision-making body will finalise the schedule for the election of the next party chief.

The Leader of Opposition in the Rajya Sabha told the news agency that anyone who aspires to head the Congress should enjoy popular support from Kanyakumari to Kashmir and from West Bengal to Gujarat. “You tell me the alternative. Who is there?” he asked.

On August 22, reports claimed that Gandhi has refused to contest the election for the Congress president’s post. Incumbent Congress president Sonia Gandhi has also reportedly expressed her desire not to continue in the post citing health reasons.

Kharge, however, said that Rahul Gandhi will be asked to take charge in order to fight the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh and the Bharatiya Janata Party. “We will ask him, we will force him and request him [to return as Congress President]” the Rajya Sabha MP said. “We stand behind him. We will try to pursue him.”

On Tuesday, Rajasthan Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot had also said that Gandhi should accept the position of party president.

The chief minister had said that around 250 members of the All India Congress Committee want Gandhi to take back the reins of the party. “When there is a one-sided opinion about him, then I feel he should accept,” he added.

In July 2019, Rahul Gandhi had resigned as the Congress chief following the party’s poor performance in the Lok Sabha elections. The Congress had won only only 52 of 543 parliamentary seats in the polls.

Since Rahul Gandhi’s resignation, Sonia Gandhi has acted the interim chief of the party. In August 2020, a group of 23 Congress leaders, known as G-23, had written to her to press for a complete revamp of the party’s organisation. The G-23 leaders have repeatedly said that the party needs an active president.

One of the G-23 leaders, former Rajya Sabha MP Ghulam Nabi Azad, quit the Congress on Friday. In his resignation letter, he alleged that Rahul Gandhi demolished the Congress’ “consultative mechanism” after he became the party’s vice-president in 2013.

Azad also said that the Congress has been conceding space to the BJP and regional parties because in the past eight years, the the leadership tried to foist a “non-serious individual” to be at the helm of the outfit.

Several other leaders in recent months have also cited dissatisfaction with the top leadership as the reason for having quit the party.

On Wednesday, Congress leader Jaiveer Shergill had quit the party, and stated that the “ideology and the vision of the current decision makers of the Indian National Congress” was no longer in sync with young persons.

On May 18, Patidar leader Hardik Patel, while resigning from the Congress, had accused the senior leadership of the Congress of lacking seriousness and being unwilling to listen to the problems of Gujarat’s residents.