NEW DELHI: A day after the Congress high command asked state units to pass resolutions authorising the party president to appoint state chiefs and nominate AICC members, the Assam Pradesh Congress Committee passed a unanimous resolution on Friday.
The move, a departure from Congress's earlier decision to hold elections to these posts, has invited sharp criticism from many senior leaders.
The resolution on Friday caught many delegates by surprise as the meeting was called for ‘Bharat Jodo Yatra’, said a Congress MP, requesting anonymity.
The MP said on September 9, a circular was sent by PCC general secretary Apurba Bhattacharya asking PCC office-bearers, MPs, MLAs, state’s frontal, department and cell heads to attend the meeting.
However, the 300-odd delegates were asked to pass the resolution authorising Sonia Gandhi to appoint new PCC chief in the meeting, which was presided by PRO Harun Yousuf, a former minister in the Delhi government. Congress leaders Jairam Ramesh and Digvijay Singh joined the meeting after the resolution was passed, said the leader.
Another senior leader said the delegates weren’t officially informed about the resolution. Many delegates said they had to vote in favour of the resolution as they didn’t want to be labelled as dissenters, he said.
“I was in favour of holding an election to choose the Pradesh Congress Committee president, and many delegates shared my opinion. But I didn’t raise an objection. Otherwise, I will be called a dissenter. The process was done arbitrarily. I want reform in the party,” he said.
Madhusudan Mistry, chairman of the Congress Central Election Authority, had said on Thursday that the election process is “open”.
But the leader said since AICC members elect 12 members of the Congress Working Committee (CWC), the election will prove to be a farce.
CWC elections were one of the demands of G-23 leaders.
Assam Congress MP Pradyut Bordoloi, however, told this newspaper that all the newly elected delegates joined Friday’s meeting and nobody demanded election for the PCC chief.
Bordoloi was one of the five MPs who had written to Mistry that electoral rolls for the Congress president poll must be made public.
Meanwhile, the Maharashtra Congress has called a meeting on September 19 to pass a one-line resolution to authorise Sonia Gandhi to appoint the next PCC chief.
On Thursday, 254 delegates from Kerala Congress passed a resolution authorising Sonia Gandhi to appoint the PCC chief and nominate the AICC members.