All India Congress Committee General Secretary Madhusudan Mistry has emerged as the new pointsman in the organisation. While he is heading the team of Lok Sabha observers who have been appointed to report on the state of preparedness of the party for the LS polls, he himself is travelling to various states to get a first hand account of how prepared the Pradesh Congress Committee is to contest the coming election.
The poster war between Congress Vadodara candidate Madhusudan Mistry and the Bharatiya Janata Party refuses to die down as the saffron party has now demanded that the expenses of the exhibits carrying photos of Congress vice president Rahul Gandhi with him should be included in his personal expenditure.
The Vadodara police on Thursday detained Congress candidate against Narendra Modi, Madhusudan Mistry, and other party workers when they tried to paste his posters on his rival's banners at advertisement kiosks in Dandiya Bazaar area.
Filing of nominations for the post of Congress president is scheduled to begin on Saturday with a contest between Rajasthan Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot and former Union minister Shashi Tharoor on the cards.
The Congress's central election authority has issued a directive that all AICC general secretaries, state in-charges, secretaries and joint secretaries would cast their vote in the party's presidential polls either at their home state or at the party headquarters in New Delhi and not in their assigned state.
Tharoor reached the AICC headquarters in New Delhi and spoke to Mistry at his office, a day before the Congress' central election authority is to issue the notification for the polls to elect the next Congress president.
Tharoor's close aide Aalim Javeri collected the forms from the office of the party's central election authority chairman Madhusudan Mistry on the first day of the start of the nomination process, all but confirming an electoral face-off for the top party post with Rajasthan Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot.
The Congress has appointed observers to coordinate meetings of its legislature party in four states where assembly election results will be declared on Sunday.
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Gaurav Gogoi will head the screening committee for Rajasthan with Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot and former deputy chief minister Sachin Pilot included among the ex-officio members of the panel.
Sonia will likely be assisted by two vice presidents: Ashok Gehlot in charge of party affairs in north India with probably P Chidambaram doing likewise for south India.
Nomination forms for the post of Congress president poll have been collected by Thiruvananthapuram MP Shashi Tharoor and All India Congress Committee (AICC) treasurer Pawan Bansal, but Rajasthan Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot has not done so yet, the party's central election authority chairman Madhusudan Mistry said on Tuesday.
Tewari's consideration to contest comes amid the reports of several party top leaders being in the fray.
A non-Gandhi is set to become the Congress president after 24 years.
Amid suspense over who could take on Shashi Tharoor in the Congress president polls, party's central election authority chairman Madhusudan Mistry on Tuesday said AICC treasurer Pawan Kumar Bansal has got nomination forms collected, adding that it may be for someone else.
Counting of votes began on Wednesday in the Congress presidential polls in which senior leaders Mallikarjun Kharge and Shashi Tharoor faced-off for the post of All India Congress Committee (AICC) chief.
A total of 20 forms were received during the nomination process. Four of them were rejected as signatures were repeated or did not match, he said.
Sharma claimed he has received complaints that neither any virtual nor any physical meeting was held to finalise the electoral rolls, the sources said.
The last electoral contest for the top post of the party took place in 2000 when Jitendra Prasada had suffered a crushing defeat at the hands of Sonia Gandhi.
Kharge or somebody else, whoever becomes the chief, he will only be a face to show, Sushil Modi said.
Chairman of central election authority Madhusudan Mistri will be available in Congress headquarters in the national capital to take the nomination papers as returning officer of the election.
Congress observers for Rajasthan on Tuesday recommended disciplinary action against three key loyalists of Ashok Gehlot but did not seek any action against the chief minister, as the party scampered to resolve the crisis that has cast a shadow on the election of the party president.
In instructions for polling issued on Saturday, Congress central election authority chairman Madhusudan Mistry had said Pradesh Congress Committee members 'will mark '1' on the ballot paper against the name of the candidate and fold the ballot paper to put it into the ballot box'.
In the manifesto released on Saturday, the Congress also promised unemployment allowance of Rs 3,000 per month, Rs 2,000 pension to divyangs, widows, senior citizens and needy women, and waiver of loans of up to Rs 3 lakh of all fishermen, among other things.
Manish Tewari, Prithviraj Chavan, Anand Sharma and Bhupinder Hooda are the members of the pro-reform G23 group who wrote a letter to party's interim president Sonia Gandhi.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Thursday said there was a competition among Congress leaders as to who will use the most abusive words against him, referring to the opposition party president Mallikarjun Kharge's 'Ravan' jibe at him.
'I would like to see Kharge include Shashi in the Congress Working Committee.' 'The other alternative is that the Congress will marginalise him.'
Senior Congress leader Shashi Tharoor has written to the party's central election authority chairman Madhusudan Mistry seeking the publication of electoral rolls for the upcoming election to the post of All India Congress Committee president, sources said.
The Congress on Sunday announced that elections for its president will be held on October 17 with the winner being declared two days later, asserting that it is the only party in the country which undertakes such a democratic exercise.
Congress leader Shashi Tharoor on Monday claimed he has the support of party workers from across the country for his bid to fight the AICC president polls.
Tharoor's campaign team has also raised 'serious issues' in the conduct of the election in Punjab and Telangana.
The Congress presidential polls will be held by a secret ballot and no one will get to know who voted for whom, the party's central election authority chairman Madhusudan Mistry said on Wednesday, asserting that a level-playing field has been ensured for both candidates.
Congress leaders Madhusudan Mistry and Nagma were detained on Saturday when they were on their way to Moradabad to hold a 'peace march'.
Modi had said he receives "2.5-3 kg" of abuses everyday, but he turns the harsh remarks into positive energy.
Hectic preparations were underway at the Congress headquarters for the ceremony where party president Sonia Gandhi will hand over the baton to her successor, Mallikarjun Kharge, the first non-Gandhi to head the outfit in 24 years.
Speaking to the media, Gehlot, who is in Kerala to take part in the Bharat Jodo Yatra, said, "I said earlier that I will request him (Rahul Gandhi) to accept this post when all the Congress Committees are passing resolutions in this regard. He made it clear that no one from the Gandhi family will become the next chief. He said he has decided this due to some reasons, a non-Gandhi family member will become the party chief."
Congress's Lok Sabha members Shashi Tharoor, Manish Tewari, Karti Chidambaram, Pradyut Bordoloi and Abdul Khaleque said this list must be made available in order to verify who is entitled to nominate a candidate and who is entitled to vote.
Eighty-nine Lok Sabha seats spread over seven states and two Union Territories will go to polls in the seventh phase on Wednesday.
By nominating Madhusudan Mistry, Digvijaya Singh, Kumari Selja as the party's Rajya Sabha candidates, and roping in Sanjay Singh, the Congress vice-president has failed to walk the talk, argues Rediff.com's Sheela Bhatt.
New members have to give a declaration that they will not own any property in excess of ceiling laws and will undertake tasks including "manual labour" prescribed by the party.
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