Congress prez poll: When Jitendra Prasada challenged Sonia Gandhi and lost

Senior Congress leader Shashi Tharoor is contemplating the possibility of running for the post of the party president, the elections for which are due to be held on October 17

Senior Congress leader Dr Shashi Tharoor is contemplating the possibility of running for the post of the party president, the elections for which are due to be held on October 17. Tharoor has not taken a final call yet on the matter, reported PTI on Monday, quoting sources. 

In an article he wrote for a Malayalam daily, the Thiruvananthpuram MP called for a "free and fair" election. Tharoor said that Congress should ideally have announced elections for the dozen seats on the Congress Working Committee (CWC) that are supposed to be elected.

The MP wrote in the article, " ...electing a fresh president is a start towards the revitalisation the Congress badly needs."

The upcoming CWC meet on October 17 will see an open election to choose the next party president; Congress is the only party in the country to follow such a democratic exercise. The result will be declared on October 19.

Refusing to comment on the same, the 66-year-old Congress leader on Tuesday told reporters, "No comment to make. I accept what I've written in my article which is that an election would be a good thing for the Congress party." 

This comes as the Congress party faces an internal rift over the election of a new president of the century-old party. While many leaders, including senior party member Mallikarjun Kharge and Rajasthan Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot, think that Rahul Gandhi should assume the leadership role, some believe that Congress needs a fresh face. A senior leader of the party and former chief minister of Jammu and Kashmir, Ghulam Nabi Azad, quit Congress on Friday, as he wrote in his resignation letter that "inexperienced sycophants" are running the party affairs. 

The latest speculation around Tharoor contesting for the president poll of Congress echoes strongly with the last time a non-Gandhian face ran for the biggest party post. 

It was the year 2000 when a faction of the party had openly challenged Sonia Gandhi's leadership of the party amid a growing rebellion by senior party leaders against her. 

This had happened after many senior party members, including Sharad Pawar, PA Sangma, and Tariq Anwar, in 1999, said that Sonia, widow of Rajiv Gandhi, did not have what it took to be Prime Minister of India due to her Italian descent and inexperience. While the rebel leaders were shown the door, and in their absence, the flag of rebellion was passed on to Rajesh Pilot and Jitendra Prasada. 

Soon after they began their campaign, challenging Sonia's leadership, Pilot, at the age of 55, died in a car crash. But Prasada, 62 at that time, went ahead with his battle. 

When polls were held in November 2000 to elect the next president of the party, Prasada was significantly outnumbered as out of 7,542 votes, he received only 94. 

Later in December, he told a journalist from India Today, "After giving me an innings defeat, my sight possibly makes her (Sonia) feel reassured. The match was fixed behind my back, but I don't claim that I would have won if she'd played it straight."

The party veteran died after a cerebral haemorrhage on January 16, 2001.

Now, if Tharoor chooses to contest the poll to become the next president of Congress, this will be the first time in nearly 22 years that the party will see a contest for the position.