Congress MP Shashi Tharoor – the first to officially enter the race for Congress chief – is slated to file his nomination documents on September 30. According to people in the know, he is presently approaching delegates from various states in order to secure 50 proposers for his candidature. The AICC president polls have been projected as an open election that anybody among the 9,000 Pradesh Congress Committee (PCC) delegates can contest.
As per an ANI update quoting sources, Tharoor will be filing his nomination on the final day of the process. With Rahul Gandhi so far maintaining his earlier stance of not taking on party presidency, a showdown between the Thiruvananthapuram MP and Rajasthan Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot seems likely. In the next few days it would also be clear whether any surprise candidates intend to throw their hat in the ring.
Tharoor’s close aide Aalim Javeri took the forms on his behalf from the office of the party’s central election authority chairman Madhusudan Mistry on Saturday soon after the nomination process started.
Sonia Gandhi had welcomed the idea of more people contesting the poll and dispelled the notion that there would be an “official candidate”. The Congress president had also conveyed that she would stay “neutral” in the elections.
The date for scrutiny of the nomination papers is October 1, while the last date for withdrawal of nominations is October 8.
The final list of candidates will be published at 5 pm on October 8. The polling, if needed, will be held on October 17. The counting of votes will be taken up on October 19 and the results will be declared the same day.
The Congress last saw a contest for the party president’s post in November 2000. Jitendra Prasada had lost to Sonia Gandhi in 2000 and before that, Sitaram Kesri had defeated Sharad Pawar and Rajesh Pilot in 1997.
