Congress leader Sharad Pawar yesterday promised to get his supporters to give their second preference votes to Rajesh Pilot. But Pilot, the other candidate in the fray to replace Sitaram Kesri as party president, did not reciprocate. Instead, he pointed out while canvassing support that the Shiv Sena-BJP combine had won Maharashtra when Pawar was Chief Minister.
Kesris supporters remained unfazed after the refusal of both Pawar and Pilot to withdraw. Only AR Antulay, who had filed his nomination in case Pawar withdrew, retired from the fray a few minutes before the deadline for withdrawals yesterday.
The effort of some senior leaders, particularly K Karunakaran, was to get at least Pawar to withdraw on the basis of a possible appeal from Sonia Gandhi in favour of unity. She had refused to appeal since Pilot was unlikely to respond, a senior Congress office-bearer said.
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Karunakaran had not given up, though. Sonia Gandhi was inclined to help the Congress and may be ready to accept a party post, he said, adding that the contest for the partys presidentship can be avoided even at the last moment. Ms Gandhi has not made up her mind yet. Let us wait and watch.
Kesris supporters were sure he would sail through as the election over the past few days of around 8,000 party delegates who comprise the electoral college have been carefully managed to ensure that Kesri-backers dominate.
Pawar seemed to be pinning his hopes on winning on the basis of Pilots supporters second preference votes. The partys election process mandates that the winner must win 50 per cent support. Therefore, if there are more than two candidates, every valid vote must indicate a second preference.
So, if Kesri fails to muster 50 per cent in the first round and Pawar gets the second highest number of votes, Pilot would be knocked out for the second round and all his supporters second preference votes would be counted with as much weight as first preference votes. If most of them were in Pawars favour, he could defeat Kesri. Pilot did seem to have less support than the other two contendors. Agencies reported that he got little response among Congress leaders in Calcutta. The Mamata Bannerjee camp in the WBPCC supports Pawar while the Somen Mitra faction backs Kesri.