New Delhi: Congress chief Sonia Gandhi and former party president Rahul Gandhi have registered themselves as PCC delegates from their home state Uttar Pradesh while Priyanka Gandhi Vadra and former prime minister Manmohan Singh have registered from Delhi, sources told ETV Bharat on Tuesday.
Central Election Authority chairman Madhusudan Mistry handed over the complete list of over 9000 PCC delegates, who will vote in the election for the next party president, to Congress chief Sonia Gandhi. Mistry also handed over the first QR code-based identity card to Sonia Gandhi in her capacity as a PCC delegate.
The high-tech identity cards are being used by the party for the first time to ensure transparency in the election for the next Congress chief and also to reduce any chances of the use of duplicate identity cards by any of the delegates. In an interesting development, amid controversy around the candidature of Rajasthan Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot for the top party post, AICC treasurer Pawan Kumar Bansal collected two forms from the CEC office, setting off a buzz around his name.
Sonia is reportedly miffed over a recent revolt from the Gehlot camp in Rajasthan where over 90 MLAs refused to back a CM candidate chosen by the high command on Sunday. That set the Congress chief to exploring new candidates to replace Gehlot as the next party chief. Sources close to the AICC Treasurer denied he was in the race for the Congress president post.
Also read: After Sonia’s tough stand, Gehlot camp cracking up
They said that he had collected the forms for some other use, possibly for some leaders who may be proposers of a certain candidate. Bansal has been functioning as the Congress Treasurer after the death of veteran Ahmed Patel in 2020. Patel, who was a close aide of Sonia Gandhi, had been given the key charge of managing the party’s finances by the Congress president.
The election for the next Congress president has assumed significance as former chief Rahul Gandhi, who is leading the nationwide Bharat Jodo Yatra, has refused to file his papers, leaving the chair open for a non-Gandhi person. As Gehlot received the blessings of Sonia and Rahul Gandhi to go ahead in the key contest, the party’s Lok Sabha MP from Kerala Shashi Tharoor decided to challenge the veteran.
Tharoor has already stated that he will file his papers on September 30, the last day of nomination for the post of next Congress chief. Amid a buzz around Pawan Bansal’s name, party insiders said the AICC Treasurer who is a former MP and Union minister as well, has not headed a big state unlike Gehlot, who has been chief minister of Rajasthan three times and has been in charge of several states also.
In this backdrop, a person from a big state should get a preference from the high command as a possible replacement for Gehlot, said the party insiders. Apart from Bansal, the other names doing the rounds are Mukul Wasnik, Digvijay Singh, Mallikarjun Kharge and Sushil Kumar Shinde and Kamal Nath, who met Sonia on Monday.
Digvijay Singh, who is coordinating Rahul’s yatra, has reportedly told his supporters to wait for clarity over the issue till September 30, the last day of nominations.
