Digvijaya Singh called on Shashi Tharoor today
Amid hectic meetings in the run-up to the Congress president election, senior party leaders Shashi Tharoor and Digvijaya Singh -- both contenders for the top post -- met and wished each other the best for the upcoming contest.
Mr Tharoor shared a picture in which the two leaders can be seen hugging each other and posted that it is "not a battle between rivals but a friendly contest among colleagues". He stressed that the common goal is to make the Congress win.
Retweeting the post, Mr Singh said he agrees with Mr Tharoor. He stressed that their battle is against "communal forces" and that they both believe in the Gandhian-Nehruvian ideology". He also wished Mr Tharoor best for the upcoming contest.
Following the exit of Congress veteran Ashok Gehlot from the race for Congress top job in the aftermath of the Rajasthan MLAs' rebellion, Mr Tharoor and Mr Singh are prime contenders for the post.
Both the leaders are likely to file their nomination papers for the election tomorrow. While Mr Tharoor collected the nomination form last week, Mr Singh did so today.
Digvijaya Singh, a Rajya Sabha MP and a former Chief Minister of Madhya Pradesh, is known to be a loyalist of the Gandhi family.
Mr Tharoor, on the other hand, was among the 23 senior Congress leaders -- now known as G-23 -- who had written a letter to Congress president Sonia Gandhi in 2020, seeking sweeping reforms in the party.
Before the rebellion by Rajasthan MLAs loyal to Mr Gehlot, the 71-year-old veteran was being considered the frontrunner and the choice of the Gandhis for the top job.
However, they were upset after the MLAs' rebellion, during which they declared that they will not accept Mr Gehlot's bitter rival Sachin Pilot as the next Chief Minister. Mr Pilot was the high command's choice for the Chief Minister post if Mr Gehlot took over as Congress chief.
The legislators demanded that the next Chief Minister be chosen from among those who stood by Mr Gehlot when a mutiny in 2020 led by Mr Pilot threatened to bring down the government.
While Mr Gehlot repeatedly stressed that he had no role in the rebellion and that the MLAs were angry with Mr Pilot for his mutiny in 2020, it was unlikely that the MLAs would go as far as to defy the leadership without his blessing.
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