Rahul set to be elected Cong chief unopposed
ORGANISATIONAL POLLS Party vice president files nomination papers for top post
NEW DELHI: Congress vice president Rahul Gandhi is set to take over as the party’s president on December 11 after he was the only one to file the nomination for the post on Monday, the last day to do so. Gandhi will take over the reins of the party from his mother Sonia Gandhi who has steered the party for the past 19 years.
He will be the sixth member of the Nehru-gandhi family to occupy the party’s highest position in its 131 years of existence. Gandhi was made the Congress’s deputy chief in January 2013.
“Rahulji has been the darling of the Congress ... He will carry on the great tradition of the Congress party,” former prime minister Manmohan Singh gushed, as jubilant Congress workers thronged the party headquarters in the national capital.
The official announcement of Gandhi’s appointment will come on December 11, the last day for withdrawing nominations.
The Congress central election authority, which oversees organisational polls, received as many as 89 sets of nomination papers for Gandhi, including from proposers such as his mother, former prime minister Singh and other Congress Working Committee members.
The papers will be checked on Tuesday.
Gandhi, 47, visited the homes of Singh, former President Pra- nab Mukherjee, and his mother to seek blessings before filing his nomination around 11am.