File Picture Courtesy : Zee News.com
It has been speculation for some years now as tow hen will vice- president Rahul Gandhi become Congress president. Finally the suspense seems to have ended as Congress chief Sonia Gandhi had said that son Rahul Gandhi will soon take over the reins of the party.
“You have been asking this for so many years and it’s now happening,” she told NDTV at a function to release former president Pranab Mukherjee’s autobiography, The Coalition Years 1996-2012.
It may be recalled that few days back Rajasthan Congress chief Sachin Pilot had indicated that Rahul’s elevation is coming soon.
According to various media reports, the majority of the state Congress units barring poll-bound Gujarat, Himachal Pradesh, Karnataka, Tripura, Meghalaya and Nagaland have completed their organisational elections though without any contest.
Almost all states have passed unanimous resolution, demanding the elevation of Rahul as the party chief.
After the party’s Central Election Authority (CEA), which is overseeing the organisational polls, receives the list of delegates and resolutions from all the states, the process of electing the new Congress president will begin.
The CEA members will meet Sonia Gandhi to apprise her of the completion of various phases of the organisational polls.
The Congress Working Committee (CWC), the party’s highest decision-making body, will then be called to finalise the dates of filing and withdrawal of nominations for the top post.
Sonia Gandhi holds the record of being the party chief for more than 19 consecutive years after taking over from Sitaram Kesri in March 1998.
During her entire tenure, Sonia Gandhi had to face contest only once. She defeated Jitendra Prasada — who had served as political advisor to former prime ministers Rajiv Gandhi and PV Narasimha Rao — in a one-sided contest on November 9, 2000.
The CWC has not witnessed any election in more than two decades now. The last time CWC witnessed a contest was in 1997 during the Kolkata plenary and prior to that in 1992 at the Tirupati session.
