Congress presidents are often not chosen by a strong central leadership or by a top leader of the party. In fact, Mahatma Gandhi had sown this trend before independence, with the rise of Jawaharlal Nehru, first as party president in 1929 and later as prime minister of independent India in 1947.
After the split of the Congress in the late 1960s, Indira Gandhi and her children were the undisputed leaders in the Congress (Indira), which was later officially recognized as the Indian National Congress. High command culture has existed within the party for decades. However, this is only the third time in the last five decades that the Congress will see an election for the top post.
Who will elect the Congress President?
The Congress Working Committee, the party’s apex body, has decided that by October 17, the President of the All India Congress Committee (AICC) will be elected. The party’s Central Election Authority (CEA) will oversee the election process under Article XVIII of its constitution.
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The strength of the Electoral College is around 9,000. All of them are representatives of Congress. The Congress constitution states that the members of all Pradesh Congress Committees (PCCs) are representatives of the Congress.
There are clear guidelines for electing these representatives, who in turn elect the Congress President.
Therefore the Block Congress Committee sends a representative to the PCC. The former and current presidents of the PCC automatically become the representatives, and so do the AICC members residing in that state. In addition, the PCC nominates some representatives from under-represented categories, and some are elected by the Congress Legislature Party in various states.
The winner has to get more than half of the total votes. If no candidate receives 50% of the votes, second preference votes are counted. In a two-horse race, the candidate with the most votes wins.
This time, the party’s CEA has barred office-bearers from campaigning for any candidate ahead of the October 17 polling.
Who are the contestants of this time?
It is a face-off between Congress veteran Mallikarjun Kharge and Shashi Tharoor. Kharge, 80, recently resigned as the Leader of the Opposition in the Rajya Sabha – in line with the Congress policy of one man, one post – and was seen as a candidate for the high command (read Gandhi). Tharoor, 66, is a Congress MP from Thiruvananthapuram and a former UN Under-Secretary-General.
How has the Congress President been elected in the past?
This is only the third time that there will be a contest for the top post in the Indian National Congress in the last five decades. Sitaram Kesari defeated Sharad Pawar and Rajesh Pilot in 1997, while Sonia Gandhi defeated Jitendra Prasad in 2000.
Sonia Gandhi remained the undisputed president of the Congress until 2017, when she made way for her son Rahul Gandhi, who was also elected unopposed, but later stepped down following the party’s defeat in the 2019 elections. Since then, Sonia has been the interim president of the Congress.
The Gandhi family has been the undisputed high command of the party for decades. After the split of the Congress in 1969, Indira became the unopposed leader of the Congress (Indira) – it was recognized as the Indian National Congress in 1981 – and later became both party president and prime minister. Rajiv Gandhi and PV Narasimha Rao also remained both party president and prime minister. However, the elevation of Manmohan Singh as prime minister was a departure from this practice – Sonia remained president but chose Singh for the job of prime minister.
The practice of the supreme leader deciding the party president probably began in the pre-independence era with Mahatma Gandhi, who paved the way for the rise of Nehru initially as Congress President and later as Prime Minister of independent India.
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