Congress panel to decide on timeline for internal elections in January

Several States are facing uncertainty and leadership crises

Congress flag. File

The Central Election Authority (CEA) of the Congress party, entrusted with the task of holding organisational elections to elect a new party president, is likely to meet in the first week of January, a person familiar with the development said on Saturday.

The source quoted above said that though the CEA had firmed up a tentative election schedule, it was asked to put it on hold until the December 19 meeting of party president Sonia Gandhi with key members of the group of 23 dissenters (G-23) as the effort was to create a consensus on the party’s presidential candidate.

If all goes as planned, then the party would complete the process by February and inform the Election Commission (EC), he added.

While the party’s focus has been on who will be the next national president, several States are going through the same uncertainty and leadership crisis.

In Telangana, former Rajya Sabha member and party veteran V. Hanumantha Rao on Saturday threatened to quit if the party high command decided to elevate Lok Sabha member Revanth Reddy as the Pradesh Congress Committee (PCC) chief.

The post of the Telangana PCC chief fell vacant after Uttam Kumar Reddy stepped down from his post owning moral responsibility for the party’s rout in the recent Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation elections.

In Assam, where elections are barely four months away, there is a deep sense of dissatisfaction over the party’s leadership. The Hindu has learnt that a letter was sent by a few of the party’s top State leaders, including three MPs, to Congress president Sonia Gandhi on August 19, in which they argued that the party had become “rudderless” under the current leadership and claimed that the incumbent PCC chief did not command respect from party workers.

These Congress leaders were also worried about the fallout of a possible alliance with Badruddin Ajmal’s All India United Democratic Front (AIUDF).

“... our projected and much trumpeted electoral alliance only with the AIUDF would put us in a very disadvantageous position unless we broadbase the alliance by inducting same other ethnic, indigenous and regional groups,” the leaders argued.

In Madhya Pradesh, where senior leader Kamal Nath heads both the PCC as well as the Congress Legislature Party (CLP), there is a demand for implementing a “one man one post formula” among a section of leaders after the party suffered a setback in the recent by-polls to 28 Assembly seats in the State.

Maharashtra, too, faces a similar demand as PCC chief Balasaheb Thorat is also a Minister in the Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA).

Even in Gujarat, where elections are due towards the end of 2022, a leadership tussle is brewing as PCC chief Amit Chavda and CLP leader Paresh Dhanani are not known share a great relationship.