STATE TIMES NEWS
NEW DELHI: The Congress Working Committee (CWC) announced a revised schedule for its long-awaited election for the party president on Sunday. The polling will take place on October 17 and the results will be announced on October 19.
Party leaders suggested that it is unlikely that a number of candidates will be in the fray. The party High Command is keen to see Rajasthan chief minister Ashok Gehlot take charge of the party as the next president.
CWC approved the final schedule of dates suggested by the Central Election Authority of the All India Congress Committee (AICC) for election to the post of Congress president in a meeting on Sunday.
The date of notification is September 22, 2022 and candidates can file their nomination between September 24 and 30.
The last date of withdrawal will be October 8.
“Date of Election (if needed): October 17th, 2022 (Monday) 10am to 4pm. Date of Counting and Declaration of Result (if needed): October 19th, 2022 (Wednesday) 10am onwards,” announced a Congress press release.
The CWC also reiterated “its resolve to make the Mehangai Par Halla Bol rally in New Delhi on September 4th and the launch of the Bharat Jodo Yatra from Kanyakumari on September 7th and its continuation thereafter a resounding success.”
For the past three years Sonia Gandhi has been in charge as the interim president after Rahul Gandhi stepped down as the party chief following the poll debacle in 2019.
The CWC last year decided that elections for block committees and one member each of state Congress units will be held from April 16 to May 31, district committee chiefs will be elected between June 1 and July 20, state chiefs and AICC members between July 21 and August 20, and AICC president between August 21 and September 20.
However, people familiar with the matter said the process of the election of AICC President would be delayed by a few weeks due to the ‘Bharat Jodo Yatra’ and some state units not completing formalities.
Sunday’s online CWC meeting started at 3.30pm with Sonia Gandhi, who is abroad for medical checkups, presiding over it. She was flanked by former party chief Rahul Gandhi and Priyanka Gandhi Vadra.
Former prime minister Manmohan Singh, party’s central election authority chairman Madhusudan Mistry, K C Venugopal, former union ministers Jairam Ramesh, Mukul Wasnik and P Chidambaram, Rajasthan chief minister Ashok Gehlot and Chhattisgarh CM Bhupesh Baghel were also present among others.
Anand Sharma, who was part of the G-23 dissident group, was also present in the meeting.
Congress general secretary (organisation) K C Venugopal said that the election schedule was approved unanimously.
The announcement of the election schedule has come amid a fresh upheaval in the Congress after veteran leader Ghulam Nabi Azad resigned from the party on Friday with a scathing letter to Sonia Gandhi, lashing out at Rahul Gandhi for “demolishing the party’s entire consultative mechanism”.
Several leaders, including Rajasthan chief minister Gehlot, have publicly exhorted Rahul Gandhi to return as the party chief. However, people familiar with the matter have maintained that Rahul Gandhi is persisting with his stance that he will not be the AICC president.
