Congress at war: Party rejects call to publish rolls for president polls
Any party member can check the copy of the electoral rolls at any of the PCC offices, said AICC general secretary K C Venugopal
A squabble erupted in Congress over the upcoming elections for party president, with three MPs publicly demanding that the electoral rolls be made public and the party rejecting the demand, claiming that the practise never existed.
Following G23 leader Anand Sharma’s demand at the CWC meeting on Sunday, another dissident, Manish Tewari, said on Wednesday that it should be done in the interest of “free and fair polls” and to assist potential candidates who would need the signatures of 10 delegates to file their papers. Shashi Tharoor and Karti Chidamabram, the son of veteran P Chidambaram, backed him up.
AICC central election authority chairman Madhusudan Mistry said that electoral college of PCC delegates could be viewed at state headquarters, while the consolidated list would be provided to candidates. AICC general secretary incharge of organisation KC Venugopal rejected the demand to publish the rolls. “This is an in-house procedure, and it is not supposed to be published for all to see. There is no such practice. We will continue to follow the old practice,” he said.
“How can there be a fair and free election without a publicly available electoral roll? Essence of a fair and free process is names and addresses of electors…” Tewari tweeted, adding, “Why should someone have to go to every PCC office in the country to find out who the electors are.”
Tharoor said, “I think it’s important… everybody should know who can nominate and who can vote. There is nothing wrong with that.” While tweeting that “reformists are not rebels”, Karti said, “Every election needs a well-defined and clear electoral college… An ad hoc electoral college is no electoral college.”
Tewari also asked why CWC announced the schedule of the president’s election, but not of 28 PCCs and eight territorial Congress committees.
