Congress shortens Rahul's path to top party post, elections to begin in Aug

New Delhi: The Congress has decided to speed-up the procedures for Rahul Gandhi’s take over as the party president. The organisation elections, which were scheduled between September 15 and October 15 this year, will now begin in August.

According to a report in NDTV, Congress Vice-President will take over as the party president, replacing his mother Sonia Gandhi, in September.

The move to hand over the party’s leadership to Rahul has not been much appreciated by opposition leaders like Mamata Banerjee and Mayawati.

Sonia will, however, retain a key role as the chief of the Congress Parliamentary Party, NDTV quoted its sources as saying. Moreover, the communications strategy team, comprising P Chidambaram, Ghulam Nabi Azad, Anand Sharma, Jairam Ramesh and Mani Shankar Aiyar, that Sonia set up recently will oversee party’s key policies.

As mandated by the Election Commission of India, in April this year the Congress agreed to complete its internal elections and re-constituted the central election committee.

Following the president's election, there will be another round to appoint CWC members. The CWC has 25 members, of whom at least 12 are elected by All India Congress Committee (AICC) members. There has been no need to conduct elections to the CWC since 1997.