New Delhi: Rajasthan chief minister Ashok Gehlot is thought to have hinted that he will contest the election for Congress party president should former party chief Rahul Gandhi choose not to put his own name forward for the post.
At a Congress legislature party meeting at his residencet, Gehlot reportedly told the party’s Rajasthan MLAs that they would be required to travel to New Delhi if the chief minister decides to file his nomination, news agency PTI cited state food and civil supplies minister Pratap Singh Khachariyawas as saying.
However, Khachariyawas also said that Gehlot will first travel to Kochi, where Gandhi is helming the party’s ‘Bharat Jodo Yatra’, to convince the leader to contest the election for the post of the party’s next national president.
Nominations for the internal election will open on September 24 and conclude on September 30. Nominations can, thereafter, be withdrawn up to October 8 and should the post be contested, elections for the same will be held October 17, with the results being announced on October 19.
Until now, Gehlot has denied that he will contest the election, noting that he will try and convince Gandhi to contest. However, political circles have been abuzz with rumours that interim Congress chief Sonia Gandhi has backed Gehlot for the top post.
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Yet, the Pradesh Congress Committee (PCC) in Rajasthan was the first to pass a resolution backing Gandhi’s return as party chief, after which the Congress units in Chhattisgarh, Maharashtra, Gujarat, Puducherry, Tamil Nadu and Jammu and Kashmir followed suit.
Most recently, the Odisha, Jharkhand and Haryana PCCs passed similar resolutions, the Times of India reported. However, sources close to Rahul Gandhi say that he is unlikely to contest the election.
Speculation about Gehlot’s potential nomination comes at a time when another senior Congress leader, MP Shashi Tharoor, is thought to have intimated his decision to contest the election to interim party chief Sonia Gandhi in a 40-minute meeting. While Tharoor refused to divulge any details regarding the said meeting, party leaders cited by the Indian Express reportedly said that Gandhi told Tharoor she would “remain neutral” should he choose to contest.
However, according to the TOI report, leaders from the party’s Kerala unit (the state from which Tharoor hails) have opposed his supposed choice to contest, saying that he did not consult the state leadership and indicating that Rahul Gandhi remains their top choice for the post. A resolution backing Gandhi from the Kerala PCC is expected to come soon.
Nonetheless, Sonia Gandhi, during the meeting with Tharoor, is thought to have stressed she wants a “free and fair election” and that anyone who chooses is welcome to contest the post.
The Congress had come under fire in the past for the party’s elections being ‘undemocratic’. A group of 23 senior Congress leaders (G-23; of which Tharoor is a part) had, in the past, written to Sonia Gandhi seeking a structural overhaul of the party.
More recently, when Congress veteran Ghulam Nabi Azad announced his resignation from the party, he had written, in a scathing letter to Sonia Gandhi, how the party’s functioning was becoming increasingly ‘undemocratic’.
Should Gehlot and Tharoor both put their names forward for the party’s top post, the spot will be contested for the first time in 22 years. The Wire
