Pilot To Stay Even If Pawar Enters Fray

Congress Working Committee member Rajesh Pilot indicated yesterday that he would not back down before the mantra of consensus, which party president Sitaram Kesris managers chanted yesterday.

He said he would stay in the contest for party president, even if others, such as Sharad Pawar, threw their hats into the ring.

Pilot told reporters he had been forced by the situation in Central Hall on January 3, when Kesri was unanimously elected leader of the Congress Party in Parliament. Pilot had indicated that he would force an election but had thrown in the towel in the face of strong support for Kesri.

He said yesterday that the situation was different for the election of the party president. Ballot boxes would be placed in state headquarters across the country and there could be no pressure to withdraw from a hall packed with the supporters of one candidate.

Pilot said elections were good for the party. Only a party president with the strength of having been elected by the rank and file could take the hard decisions that were needed to revive the party, he said. The party was slipping day by day, he added.

He played down the impact of the rigging that has been alleged in many states, saying that nobody could pack the entire electoral college of about 8,000 pradesh Congress committee delegates. Some sort of election is being held. At least some discussion is being held, whos good, whos bad.

The AICC spokesperson spoke of consensus as a valid form of election and expressed his confidence that the party president would be elected through consensus.

AICC general secretary Oscar Fernandes, who is in charge of the elections, acknowledged that there were complaints of rigging of the organisational elections from various states, including Kerala, Bihar, Andhra, UP, Delhi and Madhya Pradesh.

After the pradesh returning officer for the Kerala units elections resigned and refused to return to the state, the elections for the state unit were yesterday postponed. No delegates from Kerala will be able to participate in the election for a new party president. Fernandes clarified that the party constitution required that 75 per cent of the electoral college needed to have been elected before the party president could be elected. That would be accomplished, he said, before the party presidents election, which is slated for June 9.