As voting in the Congress presidential polls got underway, outgoing party chief Sonia Gandhi on Monday said she had been waiting for a long time for this day.
The BJP calling the Congress a "torn old party" moving towards a stage where its relevance and necessity will be completely lost.
Sonia Gandhi had tested positive for COVID-19 in early June as well.
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.
The counting of votes for the Rajya Sabha elections was delayed on Friday in Maharashtra and Haryana over alleged violation of rules, officials said.
Seeking to consolidate its position in Rajya Sabha, the Bharatiya Janata Party is banking on independents for four additional seats and is seeking to capitalise on the infighting within the Congress in as many states in the June 10 biennial election.
The Union home ministry has recommended the special CAG audit taking note of a May 24 letter by Lieutenant Governor V K Saxena which pointed out 'gross and prima facie financial irregularities' in the 'reconstruction' of the chief minister's official residence, they claimed.
'I know, you did it all for love,' Priyanka Gandhi Vadra said on Wednesday in an Instagram tribute showing her mother Sonia Gandhi, who on Wednesday handed the party's reins to a new Congress president, holding a photograph of the late Rajiv Gandhi.
Senior leader P Chidambaram whose Rajya Sabha tenure is ending from Maharashtra is under consideration from Tamil Nadu as the Congress is all set to get the support of alliance partner the DMK. The G-23 leaders, including Ghulam Nabi Azad, Anand Sharma and Vivek Tankha, are also said to be in contention.
The election of Tytler as an AICC delegate drew strong reactions from Delhi's ruling AAP and the BJP, which said it exposed the opposition party's character of creating division and chaos in the country.
State Congress chief Govind Singh Dotasra, who along with two other ministers had offered to resign in a letter to party's national president Sonia Gandhi, had moved a proposal in this regard at the beginning of the meeting following which all ministers resigned.
Independent MLA Balraj Kundu, who has been vocal against the BJP-led government on several issues, remained firm in his decision to abstain from voting.
The Congress is likely to get 11 Rajya Sabha seats in the upcoming election cycle with some of its top leaders, including P Chidambaram and Jairam Ramesh, eyeing another term.
Jakhar, the former president of Punjab Congress, said the party had never named its CM face adding that it was only an exception that the Congress high command had declared Captain Amarinder Singh as the chief ministerial candidate in the run-up to the 2017 state assembly polls.
Delhi ministers Manish Sisodia and Satyendar Jain on Tuesday resigned from the Cabinet, amid corruption allegations against them.
Several MLAs loyal to Gehlot, who was seen as the frontrunner for the post of Congress national president, had last week submitted resignation letters over a possible move to appoint Pilot as the next chief minister.
The poll panel also referred to the instances of "inappropriate vocabulary and language" used during the ongoing campaign by persons, "in particular, by those invested with the statutory status of star campaigner".
The discussion between the former deputy chief minister and the Gandhi siblings comes days after the dramatic developments in Punjab where the Congress replaced Amarinder Singh as chief minister and appointed Charanjit Singh Channi, a Dalit leader, to the top post of the state.
'But unlike Punjab, the rebels have an alternative -- the BJP'
Congress observers for Rajasthan on Tuesday recommended disciplinary action against three party leaders, including two ministers, for the crisis in the state, but did not seek any action against Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot.
West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Tuesday assured her counterpart from Delhi Arvind Kejriwal, that her party would support him in his fight against the central ordinance to control appointments and transfer of bureaucrats.
The political drama in Rajasthan over leadership change continued on Monday with MLAs loyal to Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot remaining non-committal on holding a meeting with Congress observers, who are likely to return to Delhi to apprise the high command about the developments.
A resolution to this effect was passed unanimously in a meeting of the CLP in Chandigarh.
The Congress needs to reorganise itself at the grassroots, infuse younger blood, and have more boots on the ground. Just offering freebies is not the answer anymore. Leadership matters, asserts Ramesh Menon.
According to the party leadership, it does not want to create a Punjab-like situation where it had been postponed till the last moment.
What provoked Ashok Gehlot's belligerence was Sachin Pilot's participation in the Bharat Jodo Yatra with Rahul and Priyanka Gandhi in Madhya Pradesh. Gehlot was also aware that Rajasthan assembly Speaker C P Joshi had met Rahul in Maharashtra.
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.
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.
Gandhi was put in a police bus but officials did not disclose where he was being taken.
The document, which was uploaded on the defence ministry's website, was removed on Thursday morning following publication of a media report based on it.
The Congress MLAs who have been appointed advisers are Jitendra Singh, Rajkumar Sharma and Danish Abrar. Independent legislators Babu Lal Nagar, Sanyam Lodha and Ramkesh Meena have also been appointed advisers to Gehlot, according to a list released by the Chief Minister's Office.
The Congress party needs a safe pair of hands in the form of Kharge, Tewari said.
A bench headed by Chief Justice S A Bobde was informed by Solicitor General Tushar Mehta, appearing for the Centre, that a final decision would be taken in consultation with the Railways, Delhi Government and the Urban Development Ministry.
There are 1,349 candidates in the fray and over 1.45 crore electors are eligible to exercise their franchise in the elections to the 250 wards of the Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD), the results of which may have ramifications beyond the national capital.
Congress leader Rahul Gandhi alleged that Modi's move was aimed at helping a few of his 'crony capitalist friends' and had 'destroyed' the Indian economy, prompting a strong response from the BJP which said the exercise was an 'attack' on corruption and black money that were rampant during the 'lost decade' of the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance government.
The discussions are mostly one-on-one, party insiders said on Thursday, a day of many meetings.
Congress spokesperson Pawan Khera tweeted, "Shayad meri tapasya mein kuch kami reh gayi (Maybe my penance fell short)."
With the deepening political crisis in Rajasthan over the appointment of Ashok Gehlot's successor, Congress Working Committee members have demanded from Sonia Gandhi to pull the state chief minister out of the race for the party chief and select another candidate for the top post, sources said on Monday.
The development suggested a worsening power struggle between the chief minister and Sachin Pilot who was tipped to be Gehlot's replacement after he declared his candidature for the Congress president's post.
Senior Congress leaders Venugopal, Ajay Maken and Ashok Gehlot had on Wednesday took stock of the preparations for the Chintan Shivir.
