Shashi Tharoor vs Ashok Gehlot Likely For Congress President: 10 Facts

Shashi Tharoor, a former Union Minister, was the primary to declare his intention to run for a publish that has been with the Gandhis — both Sonia Gandhi or her son Rahul — for a lot of 25 years. He’s a outstanding member of the Congress’s G-23 or group of 23 leaders who had written to Sonia Gandhi in 2020 calling for an organizational overhaul and blaming the celebration’s downward spiral on a management drift.

Mr Tharoor met with Sonia Gandhi, who’s simply again from a visit overseas for a medical check-up, on Monday afternoon and obtained her go-ahead to contest the October 17 election.

Inside hours, the battle for the Congress high publish grew to become significantly harder with Ashok Gehlot rising as the opposite candidate. The Rajasthan Chief Minister, a staunch Gandhi household loyalist, had been urgent for Rahul Gandhi’s return as celebration chief till not too long ago.  He’s more likely to win assist amongst these batting for established order and a return of Rahul Gandhi on the high publish.

“Anyone who needs to contest is free and welcome to take action. This has been the constant place of the Congress Social gathering and Rahul Gandhi. That is an open, democratic and clear course of. No person wants anyone’s nod to contest,” mentioned Jairam Ramesh,  Congress MP and the celebration’s Normal Secretary-in-Cost of communications.

The elections for the publish of the Congress president will probably be held subsequent month. The submitting of nominations for the publish of the president begins in three days. The elections will happen towards the backdrop of exits by quite a few key leaders over the past yr. The final to go was senior chief Ghulam Nabi Azad, whose exit was emulated by most leaders of the celebration’s Jammu and Kashmir unit. 

Sonia Gandhi — who was the Congress President for 19 years and handed cost to son Rahul Gandhi in 2017 — has been interim Congress chief since he give up the publish in 2019, proudly owning accountability for the celebration’s second consecutive defeat typically elections. It didn’t verify the disaster, because the celebration misplaced a sequence of state elections since, triggering calls for for a sweeping change in management.  

Mr Gandhi, who’s presently main the celebration’s “Bharat Jodo” yatra, has firmly refused to return as president regardless of the unrelenting demand from a bit of Congress leaders, together with Mr Gehlot. A few of those that give up the celebration have claimed that Mr Gandhi is the unofficial decision-maker and complained {that a} coterie round him is looking the pictures.  

Because the elections have been introduced, Congress models in state after state urged Mr Gandhi to return as president. Many within the celebration see this as an try to put the Gandhis in cost, with or with out an election. Extra such requests are more likely to are available in because the election will get nearer.  

The unchecked decline of the Congress got here as a shot within the arm for opposition events like Trinamool Congress and Arvind Kejriwal’s Aam Aadmi Social gathering, which have been competing for area each within the states and the opposition ranks. Mr Kejriwal declared final week that the Congress was “completed” in Gujarat, the place elections are approaching.

 The final non-Gandhi President was Sitaram Kesari, from whom Sonia Gandhi had taken over in March 1998 – two years after the Narasimha Rao authorities was voted out. With the Congress at a low level, Mrs Gandhi, who had determined to avoid politics after the assassination of Rajiv Gandhi, had declared that she would be a part of the celebration.