"Shashi Tharoor Fighting A Lost Battle" Suggest Many Congress Leaders As Mallikarjun Kharge Files Nomination

Making a last-moment entry in the race for Congress president, veteran leader Mallikarjun Kharge filed his candidature on Friday (30 September).

Until yesterday, Digvijaya Singh and Shashi Tharoor were believed to be the prime contenders after Ashok Gehlot withdrew from the race taking moral responsibility for the Rajasthan Congress crisis.

However, Digvijaya Singh too did not go ahead with filing the nomination paper as Kharge's name came up. Singh told the media that he was planning his candidature because Kharge said that he won't be filing his nomination.

Kharge's candidature was proposed by Ashok Gehlot, Digvijaya Singh,  Pramod Tiwari, PL Punia, AK Antony, Pawan Kumar Bansal, Ambika Soni, Avinash Pandey, Rajiv Shukla, Raghuveer Meena and Mukul Wasnik.

G23 leaders Anand Sharma, Manish Tewari, Bhupendra Singh Hooda and Prithviraj Chavan are also proposers of Kharge's candidature. These leaders had a meeting last night.

Meanwhile, Shashi Tharoor remained firm on his candidature. He welcomed Kharge's nomination while affirming that he won't pull out of the party presidential race. He left it to the party workers to decide.

However, many Congress leaders appeared to suggest that Tharoor should back off as Kharge's candidature is being supported by a large number of party leaders and that Tharoor is fighting a lost battle.

Gehlot went ahead with saying that there is still time left to withdraw the candidature and Tharoor might pull out of the race. 30 September is the last date for filing a nomination, while the withdrawal can be made by 8 October.

On the other hand, Tharoor claimed that Congress President assured him that the party has no official candidate, and that the Gandhi family will stay neutral in this race and they welcome as many candidates as possible.

While putting forward his candidacy, he said, "Those who would like to continue the status quo would not be inclined to vote for me because I represent change, a different approach, and a vision to take the party forward in a different way as for some years we've been suffering setbacks."

Out of the blue, another Congress leader and former Jharkhand minister KN Tripathi came out to submit his nomination papers for the party president election.

Tripathi handed over the nomination papers to Madhusudan Mistry, chairman of the Congress' Central Election Authority, at the AICC headquarters. He served as the national president of the Congress-affiliated Indian National Trade Union Congress (Tripathi faction).