Congress postpones party president election till Covid situation improves

The Congress Working Committee unanimously decided on Monday to postpone the election to the post of party president until the Covid-19 situation in the country improves, sources said.

The Congress had earlier decided to have a new Congress president in place before June 2021 and the party's central election authority chaired by Madhusudan Mistry had proposed holding the election on June 23.

However, top Congress leaders were of the view that holding the election right now would not be proper as the coronavirus situation in the country was very grim.

Rajasthan Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot proposed that there should be no election to the post of Congress president currently in view of the Covid-19 situation and senior party leader Ghulam Nabi Azad seconded him.

Azad, a prominent member of the group of 23 leaders who had demanded organisational elections, said at the meeting that no one in the party was seeking an election right now and thus the election as proposed by the central election authority should be postponed, the sources said.

Mistry had earlier proposed that the election be held on June 23 and counting on June 24. Hw also proposed the notification for the election of a new Congress president be issued on June 1 and nominations for the same be accepted between June 2 and 7.

"The CWC unanimously decided to postpone the election of Congress president till the Covid situation in the country improves," a top leader told PTI.

The CWC had in its meeting on January 22 decided that the process for electing a Congress president would be completed by end-June and had asked the election authority chairman Madhusudan Mistri to prepare a schedule.

Meanwhile, leader of Congress in Lok, Sabha Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury, has written to President Ram Nath Kovind for convening an urgent session of Parliament to discuss the COVID situation in the country.

In his letter to the president, Chowdhury said it is important to convene a Parliament session in order to find a way to ease the lives of people suffering from novel coronavirus.

He described the pandemic situation in the country as grave and said there is a need to find a national solution to handle the issue.

"In this critical situation I would urge your kind conscience to convene a special (COVID crisis) session of Parliament because India consists of a number of constituencies and each member of Parliament representing his/her constituency from respective state has some say about the condition of people therein and in order to find a way to ease the lives of suffering people," he said in his letter.

The decision to convene a special session of Parliament was taken at a meeting of the Congress Parliamentary Party consisting of all party MPs on Friday.