The party’s concentration on the “Bharat Jodo Yatra” and certain state units failing to complete formalities will likely cause the Congress presidential election, which was scheduled to end on September 20, to be postponed by a few weeks, sources stated on Thursday, August 25.
On August 28, a virtual meeting of the party’s top decision-making body, the Congress Working Committee (CWC), will be held to ratify the precise election schedule. Sonia Gandhi, the president of the Congress, will preside over the CWC gathering.
The election for the new party president will take place between August 21 and September 20 this year, the Congress said in October of last year.
The CWC had decided that elections for district committee chiefs, PCC chiefs, AICC members, and one representative from each Pradesh Congress Committee would take place between June 1 and July 20, for block committee chiefs between July 21 and August 20, and for the AICC president between August 21 and September 20.
According to sources, the procedure would take a few weeks longer but not any longer, and the party should have a permanent president by October.
They said that several state units did not finish the necessary paperwork for the elections in time and that the party’s attention was on the “Bharat Jodo Yatra,” which would begin on September 7 and will go from Kanyakumari to Kashmir.
The “Bharat Jodo yatra” is currently being prepared by the party, which will span 3,570 kilometres in around five months from Kashmir in the north to Kanyakumari in the south.
Twelve states as well as two Union Territories will be traversed. Smaller “Bharat Jodo Yatras” will also be conducted simultaneously in different states.
Rahul Gandhi has been publicly urged by some leaders, notably Rajasthan Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot, to take over as party head once more. On the matter, though, there is still uncertainty and tension.
Rahul Gandhi, according to several party insiders, is continuing to stand by his decision to decline the position of AICC president.
After the Congress suffered its second consecutive loss in the 2019 parliamentary elections, Rahul Gandhi resigned as party leader.
Sonia Gandhi, who took over the reins of the party again as interim president, had also offered to quit in August 2020 after an open revolt by a section of leaders, referred to as G-23, but the CWC had urged her to continue.
