Congress leader KC Venugopal said on Thursday that the party’s interim president, Sonia Gandhi, will make the decision on Rajasthan’s chief minister within a day or two. Following Rajasthan chief minister Ashok Gehlot’s statement that he will not run for Congress president, Venugopal met with Sonia Gandhi in the national capital.
Gehlot’s statement follows his meeting with Sonia Gandhi earlier on Thursday, amid the uncertainty in Rajasthan and the national capital as a result of the political drama that has unfolded since Gehlot declared his candidacy for the Congress presidential election, which is scheduled to take place on October 17.
Gehlot told reporters after meeting the party president that he apologized to Gandhi for the events of Sunday, when MLAs backing him disregarded the central observers and thwarted the plan to organize a conference of party legislators. Instead, they arranged a parallel meeting to promote Gehlot’s retention or the assurance that his archrival Sachin Pilot would not replace him.
“A message went across the country that I wanted to remain as Chief Minister, and that is why (all that) happened. I have apologised to Sonia… I feel sorry,” he said.
The MLAs had skipped the meeting, determined to block sachin Pilot after reports that he would succeed Gehlot as the Chief Minister.
Meanwhile, senior Congress leader Digvijaya Singh visited Shashi Tharoor, who said they agreed that theirs is “not a war between rivals, but a friendly contest” among colleagues. Singh is expected to register his nomination for Congress president on Friday.
Tharoor has already declared that he will file his nomination for the post of Congress president on Friday, the last day of the nomination process.
Polling for the post of Congress president will take place on October 17 while the results will be announced on October 19.
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