Indian National Congress.

Sonia is Cong chief for 4th term

Express news serviceTags : Congress 1998, Sonia GandhiPosted: Fri Sep 03 2010, 02:44 hrsUpdated: Fri Sep 03 2010, 05:12 hrsNew Delhi:

Sonia Gandhi after filing her nomination for AICC president’s post, in New Delhi on Thursday.

Twelve years after she was elected Congress president in 1998, Sonia Gandhi will start her fourth consecutive term in office on Friday with her unanimous re-election.

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Rahul Gandhi, among several party Chief Ministers and prominent leaders, on Thursday proposed her name for the top post on the last day of filing of nominations. Singh, Rahul and senior leader Pranab Mukherjee had earlier called on the Congress president to take her consent for her candidature.

A total of 55 nomination papers were filed on her behalf. One set of nomination papers from Chandigarh was rejected as it had names of only nine proposers instead of the mandatory 10. Chandigarh had, however, sent another set of nomination papers which were found to be valid.

The maximum set of nominations were filed from Uttar Pradesh. Leaders from the states met Sonia in an alphabetical order to get her consent for filing the nomination.

Since 1998, when she replaced Sitaram Kesri as Congress president, Sonia has been elected unopposed except in 2000 when senior leader Jitendra Prasada had thrown his hat in the ring but failed miserably.

The festive spirit at the Congress headquarters was, however, somehow dampened by the Opposition BJP’s barbs against the ruling party.

Reacting strongly to the BJP’s attack, AICC media department chairman Janardan Dwivedi said, “We do not discuss the constitution of another party. Why four times, she could be the party president 40 times if the party wants. This democracy has seen that Jawaharlal Nehru was the Prime Minister for 17 long years and almost similar was the case with Indira Gandhi. Since other people do not get a chance, they talk about it.”

The chairman of the party’s Central Election Authority, Oscar Fernandes, dismissed the BJP’s charge, saying that the party was following its constitution.

“At the state level a leader can be PCC chief for two terms and not more, but this is not applicable to the Congress president,” he said.

(Indian Express)