A total of 68 delegates from the Meghalaya Congress will elect the new national president of All India Congress Committee (AICC) in the election to be held on October 17.
Leader of opposition in the Rajya Sabha Mallikarjun Kharge and Lok Sabha MP Shashi Tharoor are the only candidates contesting for the Congress president election.
Sources in the Meghalaya Pradesh Congress Committee (MPCC) said that 60 of these delegates were nominated by the MPCC while eight others were nominated by the AICC.
Interestingly, the Congress party in Meghalaya has no MLA to vote in the election since 12 of them have joined the All India Trinamool Congress (AITC) and five others have been suspended for supporting the MDA government.
A QR code-based identity card was issued by the Central Election Authority (CEA) of the Congress to around 9200 delegates across 29 states and nine union territories to take part in the election. The poll result will be declared on October 19.
Ahead of its presidential poll, the Congress today issued a set of guidelines for the election, debarring party office-bearers from campaigning for candidates.
Those who wish to support any candidate will have to first resign from their organisational post, stated the guidelines issued by the Congress’ central election authority.
Stating that Kharge and Tharoor are contesting the Congress president election in their personal capacity, the party said that the “delegates are free to elect any one of them, as per their choice, through ballot paper”.
AICC general secretaries/In-charges, secretaries, joint secretaries, Pradesh Congress Committee (PCC) presidents, Congress Legislature Party (CLP) leaders, heads of frontal organisations, chiefs of departments, cells and all official spokespersons “shall not campaign for or against contesting candidates”, it said.
“If they wish to support any candidate, they must first resign from their organisational post, after that they participate in the campaign process,” it said. (With PTI inputs)
