Ashok Gehlot Pulls Out Of Congress Presidential Polls

New Delhi: Rajasthan Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot on Thursday announced that he will not contest the party’s presidential polls and took moral responsibility for the political crisis in the state, media reports said quoting news agency PTI.

Gehlot made the statement after meeting Congress chief  Sonia Gandhi in Delhi. He told reporters that he has apologised to Gandhi after state Congress MLAs defied the central observers by not attending the legislature party meeting on Sunday. The legislators had instead held another meeting and several of them loyal to Gehlot tendered their resignations, pushing the party into a crisis. The MLAs had boycotted the meeting called in Jaipur to pass a resolution empowering the party president to pick Gehlot’s successor amid speculation that Sachin Pilot could be appointed the next chief minister.

The legislators demanded that the new chief minister of Rajasthan should be chosen from the pool of MLAs who had kept the government afloat when Pilot staged a revolt against the Congress in August 2020, triggering a political crisis. The Congress has issued show cause notices to three of Gehlot’s close aides for the rebellion in the party’s Rajasthan unit.

The Congress party president elections will take place on October 17 and the results will be announced two days later. The last date to file nominations is on September 30.