Congress Vice President Rahul Gandhi is all set to file his nomination papers on Monday in the organisational elections to complete the formality for his elevation as party President, a post currently held by his mother Sonia Gandhi. AICC sources said that the Gandhi scion’s nomination will be proposed by several party leaders including Punjab Chief Minister Amarinder Singh. Rahul is expected to be elected uncontested.
The nomination for the post of party president would be accepted till December 4 and scrutiny of papers would be done the next day. The last date for withdrawal of candidature is December 11. Each valid nomination paper has to be proposed by 10 state party unit delegates. Several state units are likely to file nominations proposing Rahul Gandhi as their candidate for the presidential election.
On the day notification was issued for the election, party functionary Shehzad Poonawalla alleged that the organisational poll was a rigged one. Poonawalla said that the Congress and its vice president Rahul Gandhi must answer questions raised by him about “delegates being fixed” or “about one family-one ticket rule”.
The Congress headquarters has made elaborate arrangements for the filing of nomination papers to elect the new party president. As is customary, the Pradesh Congress Committee (PCC) delegates — the electoral college that elects the party president from all states — will file nomination papers at the AICC office at 24, Akbar Road. Mullappally Ramachandran, chairman of the Central Election Authority of the Congress, will assume the role of the chief returning officer during the presidential election process
Top AICC leaders including former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, Ahmed Patel and AICC general secretaries and CWC members are slated to jointly file around four sets of nominations for the candidature of Rahul Gandhi. When Sonia Gandhi was reelected last time, a total of 58 sets of nomination papers had been filed on behalf of her.
Punjab Chief Minister Amarinder Singh has signed the nomination papers proposing Rahul Gandhi’s name for the post of Congress president and said the elevation would help revive the party ahead of the 2019 Lok Sabha polls.”
Singh said he was extremely happy to be doing the honours of nominating the Congress vice president for the post and was sure he would do well as the new leader of the party. Led by senior leader Ram Krishna Dwivedi, 10 Uttar Pradesh Congress leaders also proposed the nomination of Rahul for the post of party president. The proposal was filed before the party’s state returning officer and senior leader from Uttarakhand Kishore Upadhyaya at the state Congress headquarters in Lucknow. Former minister Raj Bahadur, ex-legislators Siraj Mehdi and Ambika Singh are among the proposers.