New Delhi: The Congress will elect its next president on October 17, if needed, and will declare the result on October 19, the Congress Working Committee decided on Sunday.
The Congress Working Committee under the chairmanship of Congress President Sonia Gandhi, considered and approved the following final schedule for election to the post of Congress President. The meeting was held virtually as Sonia is under treatment abroad.
According to Madhusudan Mistry, head of the Congress Election Authority, the date of notification is September 22, the date of filing nomination is from September 24 to September 30, the date of scrutiny is October 1, and the last date of withdrawal is October 8.
The date of the election, if there are multiple candidates, is October 17 and the date of counting and declaration of result is October 19, he said. Earlier, the polls for the top party post were to be held by September 21 but had to be postponed due to the inauspicious period in between as per the Hindu calendar.
Around 9,000 delegates will take part in the polls for Congress president. They will vote in the state unit headquarters, said Mistry. The revised schedule has come at a time when Sonia Gandhi wants to demit office due to ill health and Rahul Gandhi is reluctant to be chief again. The CWC extended its best wishes to Sonia Gandhi for a full and speedy recovery.
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There have been reports that the veterans are trying to convince Rahul even as there is speculation over a non-Gandhi option as well. The issue of internal polls had been earlier raised by the G23, group of senior dissenters, led by Ghulam Nabi Azad, who resigned on Friday.
Anand Sharma, who was Azad’s deputy in the Rajya Sabha, and had resigned from a party poll panel recently, had met Azad on Saturday, a day ahead of the CWC meeting. In a hint to the dissenters, Congress communications in-charge Jairam Ramesh said, “the Congress is the only party where internal polls take place.”
“Anyone who wants to be Congress president will have to file a nomination,” said AICC general secretary in charge of organization KC Venugopal, in a challenge to the dissenters. The CWC reiterated its resolve to make the Mehangai Par Halla Bol rally in New Delhi on September 4 and the launch of the Bharat Jodo Yatra from Kanyakumari on September 7 and its continuation thereafter a resounding success, he said.
The meeting of CWC, the Congress' highest decision-making body, took place amid a fresh upheaval in the party due to the shock resignation of veteran letter Ghulam Nabi Azad on Friday and his letter to party president Sonia Gandhi in which he lashed out at Rahul Gandhi for "demolishing the party's entire consultative mechanism".
The Congress, dealing with the fallout of a series of high-profile exits, including that of Kapil Sibal and Ashwani Kumar, has attempted to deflect the latest blow by alleging that Azad's DNA had been "Modi-fied" and linking his resignation to the end of his Rajya Sabha tenure. The online CWC meeting started at 3:30 PM with Sonia Gandhi, who is abroad for medical checkups, presiding over it, flanked by former party chief Rahul Gandhi and Priyanka Gandhi Vadra.
Several party insiders say Rahul Gandhi is persisting with his stance that he will not be the AICC president. Gehlot on Wednesday had sought to play down reports about him being the frontrunner for the Congress president's post and said efforts will be made till the last minute to persuade Rahul Gandhi to take over the reins of the party again.
