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Cong presidential poll: Gehlot meets Sonia, says open to any role
Rajasthan chief minister Ashok Gehlot met Congress chief Sonia Gandhi in Delhi on Wednesday and said he was ready for any responsibility the party gave him, potentially setting the stage for an electoral battle against former Union minister Shashi Tharoor for the Congress presidential poll next month.
Rajasthan chief minister Ashok Gehlot met Congress chief Sonia Gandhi in Delhi on Wednesday and said he was ready for any responsibility the party gave him, potentially setting the stage for an electoral battle against former Union minister Shashi Tharoor for the Congress presidential poll next month.
Gehlot met Sonia Gandhi at her 10, Janpath residence for over an hour, and later in the day flew to Kerala to join Rahul Gandhi in the Bharat Jodo Yatra, the party’s ongoing mass contact programme. Sachin Pilot, the former deputy chief minister of Rajasthan, was already in Kerala as part of the rally amid speculation over the CM post if Gehlot contests and gets elected as Congress president.
“The party has given me everything, the high command has given everything. For the last 40-50 years, I have been in various party positions. No post is important for me, what is important for me is how would I handle whatever responsibility is given to me,” Gehlot told reporters after the meeting with Sonia.
“Wherever the workers will say I will do, if they ask me to file nomination, I will do,” he added. “I want to be in a position which can be beneficial to the party,” he added, when asked if would continue to be the Rajasthan CM.
Gehlot, 71, is set to file his nomination for the October 17 poll to elect the next party chief. Tharoor, who also met Sonia Gandhi earlier in the week and was assured of a fair process, is also expected to fight the poll – making it the first time in more than two decades that the exercise will see two or more candidates competing for the post.
In the meeting, Sonia Gandhi told Gehlot that the party will remain impartial in the poll, according to two party leaders familiar with the matter, reiterating what she had told Tharoor two days ago.
After the meeting, Gehlot left for Kerala where he is scheduled to meet Rahul Gandhi and discuss the Rajasthan chief minister’s post. According to two senior leaders, Rahul Gandhi may try to convince Gehlot to consider Pilot’s candidature as the next Rajasthan CM. When asked about the speculation, Pilot was evasive.
“Who will lead, who will work in what position, all those decisions will be taken by the Congress leadership. Whether it’s Mr Gehlot, or me, or any leader in any state... There is no debate or counterargument to that,” he told news channel NDTV. Rajasthan goes to the polls next year and is only one of two states where the Congress is in power on its own.
Gehlot, meanwhile, told reporters in Delhi that he will make a last-ditch effort to convince Rahul Gandhi to take up the party president’s post. “I will again request Rahul Gandhi to become Cong president,” he said.
The filing of nominations for the election will start from Saturday and both leaders are expected to file their nominations by September 27. The date for a scrutiny of the nomination papers is October 1, while the last date for withdrawal of nominations would be October 8. Polling will be held, if necessary, on October 17 and the result will be declared on October 19.
The Congress is looking at the long-delayed internal polls as a way to energise its moribund grassroots network and reverse its poor run in elections, ahead of a raft of state polls later this year and the next, and the 2024 general elections. A number of state units have already passed resolutions calling for Rahul Gandhi to take over.
On Wednesday, Tharoor met Congress poll in-charge Madhusudan Mistry to discuss the process of filing nominations. Party leaders suggested that the party leadership will encourage an election between two or more candidates for the presidential post. “We are confident that Tharoor, a three-term MP, will muster the numbers to file nomination. If he faces any difficulty to get ten All India Congress Committee members to support his candidature, some leaders are ready to chip in,” said a senior Congress leader, requesting anonymity.
Before leaving for Kochi, Gehlot also hailed the Bharat Jodo Yatra and said, “In the present situation in which we are walking, on one hand Rahul Gandhi is travelling, that journey has created restlessness in the Bharatiya Janata Party, the issues which he has raised, apart from inflation and unemployment, within the country The whole country is worried about the prevailing situation.”
In a late-night meeting on Tuesday, Gehlot told party lawmakers in Rajasthan that they will be asked to come to New Delhi if he decides to file his nomination for the party’s presidential election. But he also indicated that he was not going anywhere.
The BJP said that the next Congress president, whether Gehlot or Tharoor, will remain a “puppet” and Rahul Gandhi will continue to be the “main driver”. “Any system Congress party adopts, whether Gehlot or Tharoor becomes president...They would only be puppets. The main driver would be Rahul Gandhi, who would be driving from the back,” said BJP spokesperson Tom Vadakkan, a former Congress leader.
