What Tharoor said after Digvijaya Singh announced Congress prez bid
Congress president polls: The two Congress leaders are currently the only contestants for the presidential polls to replace Sonia Gandhi.
Shashi Tharoor on Thursday welcomed colleague Digvijaya Singh's decision to join the contest for next month's election to replace Sonia Gandhi as a 'full-time' Congress president. Tharoor and Singh are widely seen as frontrunners for the election and met briefly today. Tharoor, the Lok Sabha MP from Kerala's Thiruvananthapuram, said the two were not rivals and that whomever won the ultimate victory would still be that of the Congress party.
“Received a visit from Digvijaya Singh this afternoon. I welcome his candidacy for the Presidency of our party. We both agreed that ours is not a battle between rivals but a friendly contest among colleagues. All we both want is that whoever prevails, Congress will win,” his tweet read.
Tharoor shared a photo of him hugging Digvijaya Singh.
Read more: 'Dummy' Digvijaya in as 'proxy' Gehlot out of favour: BJP's dig at Congress poll; 'Who believes...?'
Earlier in the day Singh, a former Madhya Pradesh chief minister, confirmed to reporters that he would run for the president's post after he collected nomination forms (reports indicated he collected 10 copies) from the party's Central Election Authority (CEA).
He is expected to file his papers tomorrow, as is Tharoor.
"I represent myself..." he said, adding he would file papers between 11 am and 3 pm Friday.
As of now, these are only two contestants after Rajasthan chief minister Ashok Gehlot withdrew his nomination amid massive internal conflict caused by his MLAs' revolt.
The final day of filing nomination for the polls is Friday. The polls are scheduled to take place on October 17 and the result will be announced on October 19.
