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Prasada refuses to withdraw from fray: PTI

"Both candidates are in the fray," Central Election Authority chairman Ram Niwas Mirdha told PTI at the end of withdrawal.

Prasada, who is taking on Gandhi, had earlier declared there was no question of his withdrawal as he was on a "fight unto finish".

Prasada has become the first Congress leader to fight against a member of the Nehru-Gandhi family for the post of party president.

The last party president's election in 1997 had witnessed a triangular contest with Sharad Pawar and Rajesh Pilot challenging the then incumbent Sitaram Kesri.

Prasada has remained in the fray despite almost the entire Congress Working Committee rallying behind Sonia Gandhi and declaring its "unanimous and whole-hearted support to the candidature of Gandhi and requesting "our colleagues in the electoral college to do so".

While Prasada has declared his move was to strengthen inner party democracy and he was not against the Nehru-Gandhi family, almost the entire CWC in a joint statement on Saturday dismissed his charge that the party was lacking intra-party democracy.

The Congress: The war within

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