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Cong setting in motion plan to elect new president next week
KT NEWS SERVICE. Dated: 1/17/2021 12:16:43 AM
NEW DELHI, Jan 15: The Congress is expected to kick off next week the process for election of its new president and members of the Congress working Committees (CWC).
Its CWC is to clear the poll programme drawn up by its central election authority (CEC), headed by former Gujarat MP Madhusudan Mistry (76) and decide whether to hold a virtual AICC session in view of the Coronavirus pandemic or hold the session that will put its stamp on election of the new party president.
The CEC has drawn up a list of some 800 AICC members who will be issued the digital IDs (identity cards) to facilitate elections in the virtual mode. The party wanted to set into motion the election process in the last part of December, but it was put off because of efforts for evolving a consensus on the name for the party president.
Some party leaders had pressed for Rahul Gandhi to take the responsibility at a meeting with the rebels convened by party president Sonia Gandhi on December 19, but Rahul shot down the demand, saying it is improper to interfere in the process going on for the internal elections. The rebel leaders insisted in that meeting to hold elections in the party at all level, including the CWC, to put an end to the culture of nominations by the Congress president.
The CWC elections have not been held for the last two decades. The Constitution provides for election of 12 CWC members and nomination of 13 others by the party president. The last CWC elections were held in 1997 in the AICC plenary in Kolkata and earlier in 1992 in Tirupathi.
So far nobody has staked claim to contest for the top post of the party president and hence an unopposed election of Rahul is most likely, but the rebels may put up a candidate if he tries to put his proxy as the new president and do back-seat driving to run the party as he has been doing since his mother Sonia Gandhi took over after he quit the post in 2019, taking responsibility for the party's poor show in the Lok Sabha elections.