Shashi Tharoor tests waters, calls for ‘free and fair’ contest for Congress chief’s post with ‘several candidates’

While Tharoor declined to comment, he signalled that he was testing the waters in an article he wrote for a Malayalam daily after the Congress Working Committee (CWC) approved and announced the schedule for the election of party president on Sunday.

“Ideally it should have announced elections also for the dozen seats on the CWC itself which are supposed to be elected. Allowing members of the party drawn from the AICC and PCC delegates to determine who will lead the party from these key positions, would have helped legitimise the incoming set of leaders and give them a credible mandate to lead the party. Still, electing a fresh president is a start towards the revitalisation the Congress badly needs,” he wrote in Mathrubhumi English on Monday.

“It could also have other beneficial effects – for instance, we have seen the global interest in the British Conservative Party during their recent leadership race, a phenomenon we already witnessed in 2019, when a dozen candidates contested to replace Theresa May, and Boris Johnson emerged on top. Replicating a similar scenario for the Congress will similarly increase the national interest in the party and galvanise more voters towards the Congress party once again. For this reason, I hope that several candidates come forward to present themselves for consideration. Putting forward their visions for the party and the nation will surely stir public interest,” he wrote.

Arguing that many Congress supporters have been dismayed by Rahul Gandhi’s refusal to contest and his statement that no member from the Gandhi family should replace him, Tharoor said: “It is really for the Gandhi family to decide where they collectively stand on this issue, but in a democracy, no party should put itself in the position of believing that only one family can lead it.”

“Either way, a free and fair election process would be a healthy way to go about settling the issue. It would legitimise the mandate being offered to the incoming president,” he wrote.

Tharoor, sources said, believes that a democratic contest will bring vibrancy, and the party can initiate a healthy discussion on reforms — around proposals like decentralisation of power and authority, giving state units a free hand in appointment of office-bearers and district presidents, and ushering in a democratic and collective decision-making process at the national level (which involves revival of the parliamentary board mechanism and elections to the CWC).

Sources said Tharoor believes that the model of AICC appointing general secretaries and in-charges for states can also be done away with. Instead, the general secretaries can work on ideas and themes.

The handicap for Tharoor, the Lok Sabha MP from Thiruvananthapuram, though is the G-23 tag, but sources said he believes that the Congress gives the democratic space for a contest.

The last time a contest took place for the post of party president was in 2001, when Jitendra Prasada took on Sonia Gandhi. Prasada could get only 94 votes, against the 7,448 votes that Sonia got.

But unlike Prasada, or Sharad Pawar and Rajesh Pilot, who had contested against Sitaram Kesri in 1997, Tharoor, who joined the party in 2009 after a stint in the United Nations, carries little baggage, those close to him believe. Throughout his political career, Prasada was on the right side of the party establishment; Pawar and Pilot too were closer to the power centres.

According to the schedule announced by the party, the window for filing of nominations is September 24-30. The last date of withdrawal is October 8 and the election, if there is more than one candidate, will take place on October 17, with the counting of votes and declaration of results two days later on October 19.

The CWC meeting on Sunday came in the wake of Ghulam Nabi Azad’s exit from the party while levelling damaging charges against Rahul Gandhi.