With Ashok Gehlot out of the contest over the "rebellion" in Rajasthan, names of KC Venugopal, Mukul Wasnik, Kumari Selja are doing the rounds as probable contenders.
Published Sep 29, 2022 | 11:13 PM ⚊ Updated Sep 30, 2022 | 1:40 AM
Shashi Tharoor with Digvijaya Singh at the former's residence on Thursday. (Twitter: Shashi Tharoor)
Thiruvananthapuram MP Shashi Tharoor will file his nomination for the AICC president polls on Friday, 30 September.
Senior Congress leader from Madhya Pradesh and Rajya Sabha member Digvijaya Singh will also file his nomination papers on Friday.
The race for the AICC president post — with the election being held after 22 years — has seen multiple twists and turns over the last two weeks. What was being viewed as a possible contest between Shashi Tharoor and Ashok Gehlot has quickly turned into a guessing game of probable candidates.
Gehlot on Thursday announced that he would not contest the AICC presidential election after a meeting with Sonia Gandhi and apologising to her for the defiance of Congress MLAs in Rajasthan. The MLAs backing Gehlot have submitted their resignation en masse in an attempt to arm-twist the Congress central leadership and prevent Sachin Pilot from taking over as chief minister, albeit without naming names.
While Friday is the last day to file nominations, candidates have till 8 October to withdraw them. Tharoor, the diplomat-turned-politician, will file his nomination at 12.15 pm at the AICC headquarters.
Tharoor’s representatives were among the first to collect nomination forms from AICC Election Authority chairman Madhusudan Mistry.
With Gehlot’s withdrawal from the contest, two-term Madhya Pradesh chief minister Singh, who has been accompanying Rahul Gandhi in the Bharat Jodo Yatra, is hoping to benefit.
The Gandhi family, however, has backed neither Tharoor nor Digvijaya Singh, an act that Congress leaders attribute to the “free and fair” nature of the elections.
With Rajasthan Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot falling out of favour with the party’s central leadership, owing to a rebellion of MLAs submitting resignations, all eyes are on other contenders who may enter the fray.
Mukul Wasnik, general secretary of the party, is an unassuming Dalit leader who was among the G23 leaders who demanded sweeping changes in the party, but continues to be a loyalist of the Gandhi family.
Wasnik, as one of the longest-serving general secretaries of the Congress, has been the party’s go-to man in times of organisational crisis even as recently as the Goa fiasco.
Another probable name doing the rounds is that of KC Venugopal, the Congress’ general secretary for organisation and a close aide and confidant of Rahul Gandhi. Venugopal is counted among a handful of people that comprises Rahul Gandhi’s closest circle in the AICC.
Kumari Selja from Haryana — another Dalit leader — is a former Union minister and member of the Congress Working Committee. She is a confidante of Sonia Gandhi.
Following a late evening phone call with Sonia Gandhi, party veteran and leader of the Opposition in the Rajya Sabha Mallikarjun Kharge is said to have emerged as a probable candidate in the AICC President polls. A popular Dalit leader, Kharge is a Gandhi-family loyalist.
AICC interim treasurer Pawan Kumar Bansal collected nomination forms for “someone”, prompting speculations of it being for another contender.
Bansal insisted that the forms were being collected on behalf of the Punjab Congress. Among the younger leaders in the Punjab Congress, unlike veteran Ambika Soni, is Ravneeth Singh Bittu, the Lok Sabha member from Anandpur Sahib, who held the position of Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha for a brief period in March 2021.
While age was being seen as a possible deterrent to leaders like Mallikarjun Kharge, P Chidambaram, and Ambika Soni to contest the polls, the likes of Kamal Nath are steering clear of it, with electoral ambitions in mind.
Some 9,000 delegates, elected to every block in Pradesh Congress Committees across the country, are eligible to vote in the AICC presidential polls.
With Congress leaders from Kerala — Tharoor’s home turf — turning up their noses at his initiative to contest, the MP is rallying support nationwide. “I am definitely backing Tharoor and many like me will vote for him, but I do not think there are enough Congress members who will support him for him to win this election,” said a Lok Sabha member from a southern state.
The MP also expressed doubts over anything changing structurally in the Congress even after the elections.
Tharoor, as one of the G23 leaders who sought changes in the party, sees the election as an opportunity to put to test his resolve to reform the party. He is banking on an undercurrent of clamour for change in the party to get him votes from like-minded leaders.
Elections for the post are scheduled to be held on 17 October at the headquarters of all Pradesh Congress Committees.
If more than one candidate goes ahead with their nomination and elections are held, the Congress will have a new president on 19 October.
