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Journalism of Courage
Ambika Soni, Mukul Wasnik, Salman Khurshid, M Veerappa Moily, and Sushil Kumar Shinde. These are some of the big names in the Congress at present, with some of them part of the Congress Working Committee (CWC). The last time the CWC elections were held, back in 1997 at the Calcutta plenary, they had lost the race along with bigwigs such as Rajesh Pilot, V C Shukla, V N Gadgil, A R Antulay, and Balram Jakhar.
As the Congress gears up to hold the plenary session of the All India Congress Committee (AICC) in Raipur from February 24 to 26, all eyes are on whether there will be a contest for the much-coveted CWC membership after over 25 years. Especially since the Congress saw elections to the post of party president last year after 22 years. The leadership has signalled that it is ready to hold elections if there is a demand from AICC delegates. According to a senior leader, whether there will be elections will depend on the “circumstances”.
According to the Congress constitution, the CWC shall consist of the president of the party, its leader in Parliament, and 23 other members, of whom 12 will be elected by the AICC — the party’s central decision-making assembly — and the rest shall be appointed by the party president.
The CWC is the all-powerful decision and policy-making body of the Congress and it technically has the power to remove or appoint the party president. The CWC is generally recast after the election or re-election of the Congress president. The CWC can be reconstituted during the AICC’s plenary session that follows the election or re-election, or after the president is authorised by the session to reorganise it.
The question is if there will be an election in Raipur or if the delegates will merely authorise party president Mallikarjun Kharge to constitute the body.
Congress leaders recalled that in the last 50 years or so genuine elections to the CWC had been held only twice. On both occasions, a person outside the Nehru-Gandhi family was at the helm. Elections to the CWC were last held in August 1997 under Sitaram Kesri. The counting, party leaders recalled, went on until the following day. Late Congress stalwart Oscar Fernandes was the returning officer who oversaw the election.
As many as 49 leaders were in the fray and some of them were established veterans and some rising stars. Among the winners of the fierce contest were Ahmed Patel, Jitendra Prasada, Madhavrao Scindia, Tariq Anwar, Pranab Mukherjee, R K Dhawan, Arjun Singh, Ghulam Nabi Azad, Sharad Pawar, and Kotla Vijaya Bhaskar Reddy.
The Calcutta plenary was also significant as the session saw Sonia Gandhi making an appearance for the first time. Kesri urged her to address the gathering. The election of some of them who were in constant touch with Gandhi was a signal to Kesri, who perhaps did not read the writing on the wall. Among those elected, Patel, Scindia, Azad, Dhawan and Singh had a channel of communication open with Gandhi, who had kept an active tab on Congress politics while remaining confined to her 10 Janpath residence after the assassination of her husband Rajiv Gandhi. Kesri was ousted from office the very next year.
Among those who won, Patel bagged the highest number of votes. While he got 664 votes, the close second was Prasada with 654 votes. Scindia got 612, Anwar 526, and Mukherjee 503. Arjun Singh and Pawar got fewer votes than R K Dhawan. While Dhawan polled 421 votes, Singh got 382, and Pawar 344. Azad got 349 votes and Andhra heavyweight Kotla Vijaybhaskar Reddy got 331.
Pilot narrowly lost as he got 326 votes. The only member of the Kesri panel who lost was H Hanumanthappa, who got 211 votes.
A look at the list of losers was also interesting. Among those who lost, Kamal Nath bagged the maximum votes after Pilot. He got 309 votes. Former Union Minister M Veerappa Moily got the lowest, receiving just 12 votes.
The biggest surprise was the votes that bigwigs such as V C Shukla, V N Gadgil, A R Antulay, and Balram Jakhar got. All of them lost the race. While Jakhar got 168 votes, Shukla bagged 112 votes, Antulay got 81 votes, and Gadgil got 43 votes. While Soni got 160 votes, Rajiv’s aide Satish Sharma got 125 votes. Salman Khurshid bagged 58 votes.
The others who could not make it included Ajit Kumar Panja, Sushil Kumar Shinde, Sunil Dutt, Santosh Mohan Deb, Priya Ranjan Dasmunsi, P R Kumaramangalam, Wasnik, Margaret Alva, Mani Shankar Aiyar, Janardhana Poojary, Giridhar Gamang and C K Jaffer Sharief.
