Rahul elected chief, officially

Aditi Tandon

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, December 11

Rahul Gandhi, 47, was today elected unopposed as the new Congress president and will be formally inaugurated in the presence of his mother and former chief Sonia Gandhi at an elaborate ceremony here on December 16.

The Central Election Authority of the Congress declared Rahul elected after the deadline for the withdrawal of nominations from the election process expired.

“Since the withdrawal time is over and there is only one candidate, I hereby declare Rahul Gandhi as the president of the Indian National Congress,” Mullappally Ramachandran, Returning Officer for election of Congress chief, said, adding that all 89 nomination forms received by the authority proposed Rahul’s candidature.

“It’s the start of a new era in Congress,” said Ghulam Nabi Azad, Leader of Opposition in the Rajya Sabha.

Rahul will be the 17th Congress president after Independence and the sixth from his family to occupy the seat starting from his ancestor Motilal Nehru.

Between them, the members of the Nehru-Gandhi family have held Congress presidency for 35 years out of the 70 years that India has been independent. Rahul’s election sustains that hold.

India’s first Prime Minister Jawahar Lal Nehru was Congress president from 1951-54. His daughter Indira Gandhi held the position in 1959 and again from 1978 to 1984 until her assassination. Rahul’s father Rajiv Gandhi was Congress chief from 1985 to 1991 and his mother Sonia Gandhi was its longest serving president from 1998 until today.