Rasheed Kidwai
Senior Journalist and Author
A moment of reckoning has come for Rahul Gandhi. The former AICC chief has to take a call whether he wishes to return as the 87th president of the grand old party or allow a non-Gandhi to head the Congress.
The party’s interim chief, Sonia Gandhi, unwilling to continue particularly after another debacle in the recent Assembly polls in Assam, West Bengal, Kerala, Puducherry and Tamil Nadu, has decided to accept the Madhusudan Devram Mistry report that had been gathering dust since January this year. Mistry heads the Congress panel on internal party elections, known as the Central Election Authority (CEA). Though the Covid-19 crisis has been cited to defer these elections, the Gandhis’ game plan seems to be to buy more time.
Rasheed Kidwai
Senior journalist and author
The internal tussle in the Congress is turning procedural and legal. The grand old party’s Central Election Authority (CEA) has prepared a list of AICC delegates and sought time from party’s interim chief Sonia Gandhi. Sonia is expected to summon the Congress Working Committee (CWC) to approve and announce a party poll schedule.
According to Madhusudan Devram Mistry, who heads the CEA, the new president will be elected by 1,000-odd AICC delegates and not by the traditional electoral college consisting of Pradesh Congress Committee delegates (numbering around 13,000) spread all over the country. Article XVIII (h) of the Congress constitution stipulates election of a ‘regular president’ by the AICC if the president resigns.