Election Commission allows Congress to hold organisational elections after deadline

The Election Commission has decided to give the Congress time till June 15 to complete organisational elections.

The EC had asked all parties to complete the elections by May 30 and took serious note of the matter when the Congress decided to hold them by July 15 and sent a show cause notice to the party on Tuesday.

On receipt of the notice, a Congress delegation called on the chief election commissioner and pleaded for extension, which the CEC granted.

Within the party, dissidents sought to bypass party president Sitaram Kesri's plea for holding the elections through consensus by raising matters that defied consensus.

According to Congress parliamentary party secretary Prithviraj Chavan, the meeting on Wednesday, which lasted for about half-an-hour, discussed whether the organisational elections should be held through consensus.

But, another dissident leader said, A R Antulay, S S Ahluwalia and another MP from Andhra Pradesh approached Kesri later and told him that if he insisted on a consensus, then certain norms had to be implemented. For instance, the dissident leaders said, the party constitution envisaged that primary members should elect the active members who then elect office-bearers of the pradesh and district committees. Since this was yet to be done, there could be no consensus regarding the organisational polls, they said.

Other dissidents have reportedly warned Kesri that they would go to the courts if he hurries through the organisational polls. It is learnt that dissidents from Bihar, Maharashtra, Rajasthan and West Bengal are pooling their resources to prevent Kesri's re-election as the party chief.

Leading dissidents from the Narasimha Rao and Sharad Pawar camps are allegedly collecting information to bring down Kesri. Some of them have already sought legal opinion over the soundness of taking Kesri to court. They apparently feel this is the last chance to challenge Kesri before he is re-elected and consolidates his position as party chief.

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