Cong to elect new president by June

NEW DELHI: The Congress party will hold its internal polls to elect a new president this June, after the upcoming round of assembly elections, the Congress Working Committee (CWC) announced on Friday after brainstorming for at least three hours on internal polls as well as issues such as the farmers’ agitation and the alleged breach of national security as evident in the Whatsapp chat transcripts of journalist Arnab Goswami.

The Congress Election Authority (CEA), the party’s panel in charge of the elections, proposed a timeline between May 15 and 30 to hold organisational elections, although some leaders, particularly those in charge of poll-bound states, said

Silence from the govt’s side on what has been revealed has been deafening On purported chat transcripts of journalist Arnab Goswami and TV ratings executive Partho Dasgupta

this could clash with the assembly elections. CEA also proposed a schedule for the election of 12 members of the new CWC. At the end, the schedule for both the polls were left for the party president to decide.

If the CWC is eventually formed through an election, it will fulfil a key demand of the 23 signatories to an August letter to the Congress leadership, seeking sweeping changes in the party