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In Delhi, Gehlot says internal politics will be resolved, worry about nation | Top points
Congress crisis: Delhi saw the movement of a number of Congress veterans whose names have since cropped up as a likely successor of Sonia Gandhi. Digvijaya Singh could become the face against Shashi Tharoor, who was the first person to announce his candidature, though Gehlot is not out of the race.
Rajasthan chief minister Ashok Gehlot reached New Delhi late on Wednesday night to hold talks with the Congress leadership as suspense continued to prevail over his candidature for the post of the party president.
Gehlot, whose statement on his likely candidature last week saw a renewed crisis in Rajasthan with his loyalists vehemently protesting against any move to name Sachin Pilot as his successor. As the turn of events caused massive embarrassment to the central leadership, three of Gehlot's loyalists were issued showcause notice on Tuesday for grave indiscipline.
Meanwhile, Delhi saw the movement of a number of Congress veterans, including Digvijaya Singh and AK Antony, whose names have since cropped up as a likely successor of interim party president Sonia Gandhi.
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Some reports suggested Singh could be the face to contest against party colleague Shashi Tharoor, who was the first person to officially announce his candidature, though Gehlot is still not out of the race.
Here are some of the top developments in Congress' never-ending leadership crisis:
- Gehlot, with whom the central leadership is reportedly upset over the weekend's rebellion, told reporters in Delhi, “We work under the Congress president. Decisions will be taken as per that in the time to come. Media should recognise the issues of the country. Authors, journalists are being called anti-nationals and jailed. We worry for them and Rahul Gandhi is on Yatra for them.”
- He further said that tackling issues of inflation, unemployment or dictatorial tendency in the country are more than the party's internal politics that would be eventually resolved. “All of us in Congress worry about the direction in which the country is heading,” he added.
- Earlier, Gehlot seemed to have changed his plans multiple times during the day. He finally boarded a special flight for the national capital around 9.30pm. Some ministers and MLAs paid a visit to him at his resident before he left for Delhi.
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- Among those who met were ministers Pratap Singh Khachariyawas, Shanti Dhariwal, speaker C P Joshi, state Congress president Govind Singh Dotasra, minister, and Mahesh Joshi.
- Later, Khachariyawas, one of Gehlot's key aides who has been quite vocal about their concerns, said the CM will meet the leadership in Delhi to convey the “feelings of 102 party MLAs”. Whether the CM will file nomination for the party president or not is a decision the high command will take, he added. "The chief minister is not resigning as of today," he said replying to a question from a reporter.
- Dhariwal, Joshi and Dharmendra Rathore were issued notices by the Congress disciplinary committee following a report submitted by AICC observers Mallikarjun Kharge and Ajay Maken. The committee, however, did not name Gehlot in the notice.
- Gehlot is learnt to have told Gandhi that he was not behind the parallel meet of MLAs and it was organised without his knowledge.
- According to reports, Gandhi has called Antony and Sushilkumar Shinde for consultations. Other names that came up as probables were Mallikarjun Kharge, Ambika Soni and Pawan Kumar Bansal, though most of them ruled themselves out of the race.
- Tharoor will file his nomination papers for the Congress chief's election on September 30 and his representative collected two more nomination forms on Wednesday.
- A new team of observers may be sent to Rajasthan to placate the crisis and Shinde may be one of them.
- Pilot is also in Delhi since Tuesday.
- The party's central election authority chairman Madhusudan Mistry said AICC treasurer Bansal has collected nomination forms but these may be for someone else. Bansal said he is not in the race.
- Mistry said he had met the party chief at her 10 Janpath residence and handed over her QR-coded identity card for the party president's election. He later met former prime minister Manmohan Singh and handed over identity card to him.
(With inputs from agencies)
