Congress Presidential election on October 17

India

oi-Deepika S

New Delhi, Aug 28: After much delay, election for the post of Congress party’s President will be held on October 17 and counting will be done on October 19. The decision was taken at the Congress Working Committee (CWC) meeting chaied by interim chief Sonia Gandhi.

“CWC met under Sonia Gandhi and approved the final schedule. Nomination process for post of Congress president will be from Sept 24 to Sept 30. Elections to be held on October 17 and counting of polls and declaration of results will be on October 19,” Congress MP KC Venugopal told reporters.

The meeting comes in the backdrop of the shock resignation of party veteran 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”.

Sonia Gandhi and the party have been saying that Congress would have its new president by September 20.

It is, meanwhile, learnt that the G-23 is keeping a close watch on the election process and its transparency.

The grouping comprising prominent veterans including former Leader of Opposition in Rajya Sabha Ghulam Nabi Azad and his deputy Anand Sharma, besides Bhupinder Singh Hooda and Manish Tewari, has been insisting on genuine elections right from the block up to the CWC level.

As of today, there is no clarity on whether Rahul Gandhi will agree to run for the Congress president’s post, with large sections of the party noting that he seemed “disinterested”.

In May 2019, Sonia Gandhi had agreed to become interim president of the party after Rahul Gandhi resigned following the Congress loss in general elections.

Even at that time, an extensive CWC consultation had favoured Rahul Gandhi to continue and urged him to do so. After he declined the party’s highest decision-making body requested Sonia Gandhi to step in.

For several months after May 2019, there was complete silence within the Congress circles on the election of a full-time party chief until late July 2020 when G-23 leaders in a letter to Sonia Gandhi sought urgent elections across all levels of the party, to revive its sagging electoral fortunes.

Subsequently, on October 16, 2021, the CWC approved a tentative schedule for the internal elections, culminating in the poll for the highest position in the party – that of the Congress president.