Kesri Puts Up Brave Face As Pawar Enters Fray

Congress president Sitaram Kesri orchestrated a show of support from party leaders yesterday to bolster his prospects to retain his post. He was faced by senior party leader Sharad Pawar, the young Turk in the CWC, Rajesh Pilot, and former Maharashtra Chief Minister AR Antulay.

Kesri made an effort to persuade Sonia Gandhi to become a PCC delegate from UP, so that her vote for him in the electoral college could help him to trounce the three candidates in the fray against him. The election of PCC delegates from Rae Bareli and Sultanpur districts were kept pending in case she agreed.

The Gandhi familys pocket borough, Amethi, falls across these two districts and she could choose to become a delegate from one of these two. A senior Kesri aide said the party chief was trying to rope her in to become a CWC member at the culmination of these elections so that she could add muscle to his leadership.

Pawar and Pilot were the strong contenders against Kesri. Supporters of both spoke of their belief that the election could be won because of the system of second preference votes. We have done our arithmatic, said senior MP YS Rajashekhar Reddy soon after filing one of the three sets of nominations papers in favour of Pilot.

If no candidate wins 50 per cent of the first preference votes, the second preference votes of the candidate with the smallest number of votes would be transferred to the other candidates with equal weight as the first preference votes. This process is to be repeated until one candidate wins 50 per cent of the valid votes.

Kesris opponents are apparently banking on the calculation that those PCC delegates who oppose him would give their second preference votes to one of the other candidates standing against him.

They hope that, in successive rounds, one of the anti-Kesri candidates would win 50 per cent of the votes as long as half the delegates do not want Kesri.

The rank and file want a change, said a leader who knows Pawars calculation. Asked if the electoral college had not been packed with Kesri backers, he said that the average Congressman would remain with Kesri until he was declared elected as a delegate.

But the Kesri camp was not leaving anything to chance. To showcase the range of support for their leader, sixty seven nomination papers were filed. These were besides the four that were declared invalid. Eight nomination papers filed were proposed by the Pradesh Congress Committee delegates form Uttar Pradesh, Jitendra Prasada told newsmen.