Shashi Tharoor first to officially enter race for Congress chief, collects nomination papers
A representative of Congress MP Shashi Tharoor collected the nomination papers for the party's presidential election from the party's central election authority chairman Madhusudan Mistry on Saturday.
Filing of nominations for the post of Congress president began on Saturday with a direct contest between Tharoor and Rajasthan chief minister Ashok Gehlot on the cards.
In a request letter sent for his candidature, Tharoor has sought five sets of nomination papers for the election of Congress party president. Mistry is available at the Congress headquarters in the national capital to take the nomination papers as returning officer of the election.
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The nominations will be filed till September 30 and results declaring the new Congress chief will be announced on 19 October.
This will be the first time in 25 years that the grand old party will witness a non-Gandhi chief after Sonia Gandhi replaced Sitaraman Kesri as party chief in 1998. The last time the Congress had a non-Gandhi chief was in 1997 when Kesri defeated Sharad Pawar and Rajesh Pilot
On Friday, Gehlot made it clear that there will be no candidate from the Gandhi family this time. "I have requested him (Congress MP Rahul Gandhi) multiple times to accept everyone's proposal of becoming the Congress president. He clarified that no one from the Gandhi family should become the next chief," news agency ANI quoted Gehlot as saying.
"It's decided that I will contest (for the post of Congress president). I will fix the date soon (to file his nomination). It's a need for the Opposition to be strong, looking at the current position of the country," Gehlot said.
On Monday, Tharoor had met Sonia Gandhi and expressed his intention to contest the AICC chief polls, while the Congress president conveyed that she would stay "neutral" in the elections.
Sonia Gandhi welcomed the idea of more people contesting the polls and dispelled the notion that there would be an "official candidate".
