Congress MPs withdraw from party polls

In an unprecedented move, all Congress leaders, who had filed nominations for the Congress parliamentary party election scheduled for day after, have withdrawn from the race.

A contender for the post of secretary in Rajya Sabha, T. Subbirami Reddy said: ‘‘This is a new concept. All of us have withdrawn our nominations because we want it to be a smooth affair. We don’t want to fight with each other for posts in the party.’’

On why nominations were filed in the first place, he said, ‘‘That is part of the process of the election.”

The contenders for Lok Sabha secretaries are Sona Ram Chowdhary, Vilas Muttemwar, Jagmeet Brar, Rameshwar Dudi and Naresh Pugalia. For Rajya Sabha secretaries, Subbirami Reddy, Prithviraj Chauhan, Khan Zaidi, Suresh Kalmadi and Akhilesh Das.