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From Prez poll to party president election: The Congress’s scramble to find a candidate
The rebellion in Rajasthan has triggered a full-blown crisis in the Congress that may force the party leadership to look for Ashok Gehlot’s alternative as a candidate for the presidential election
NEW DELHI: The Congress leadership on Tuesday scrambled to search for a candidate for the party presidential election, an alternative to its first choice chief minister Ashok Gehlot, after the rebellion by the party’s lawmakers in Rajasthan.
Just three months ago, the Congress and some other opposition parties found themselves in a similar situation when they were trying to finalise a potential candidate for the country’s presidential election. The candidates that they finalised after the initial rounds of discussions were reluctant.
In Rajasthan, the Congress’s 90-plus legislators have decided against passing a one-line resolution authorising the Congress leadership to take the call on the next chief minister and insisted on introducing conditions for the change of guard, considered a gross indiscipline according to the Congress’s standard.
As a result, Gehlot’s chances of becoming the party president, unless the Rajasthan leadership issue is resolved amicably, is virtually nil.
And that poses a problem. “For the last few weeks, Gehlot was our only choice. We didn’t have a plan B because no one anticipated such a situation may arise. Gehlot was a staunch loyalist of the Gandhi family,” said a leader involved in the Rajasthan crisis.
The full-blown crisis in the Congress just four days before the last date for filing nominations is a history-repeats-itself moment for some Congress leaders who were involved in the negotiations for the presidential election in June.
Back then, the Congress-led Opposition had also shortlisted many candidates for the presidential election but they kept opting out of the race. Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) leader Sharad Pawar, National Conference’s Farooq Abdullah, former West Bengal governor and grandson of Mahatma Gandhi Gopalkrishna Gandhi had declined to become the Opposition bloc’s joint candidate for the upcoming Presidential election.
The Opposition finally settled for former NDA minister turned Trinamool leader Yashwant Sinha at a hurriedly organized online meeting between key Opposition parties on June 20.
Even as all Opposition parties agreed to Gopalkrisha Gandhi’s candidature, the former diplomat said while he was grateful for being considered for the highest office, he felt the Opposition’s candidate should be someone who will generate a national consensus and that he felt there were others who could do this better than him.
Gopalkrishna Gandhi said that after considering deeply the offer, he urged Opposition leaders to give the opportunity to a person who would be able to create unity among these parties. “May India get a President worthy of the office presaged by Rajaji as the last Governor General and inaugurated by Dr Rajendra Prasad as our first President,” he wrote.
Opposition leaders said Gandhi’s candidature had been discussed informally for more than a month and both West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee and CPI(M) leader Sitaram Yechury were keen to rally other parties in favour of Gandhi. At the meeting on June 15, Banerjee proposed Gandhi and Abdulah’s name after Sharad Pawar politely turned down the offer to contest.
Gopalkrishna Gandhi’s refusal came as a major shock for many parties as they had pinned their hopes on him. Gandhi fought the vice presidential election in 2017 against Venkaiah Naidu but lost.
