As expected, Sonia Gandhi is set to be re-elected Congress president with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and the party's top brass cutting across generations backing her candidature for the top organisational post.
Led by Singh, party leaders including working committee members, Congress chief ministers, Union ministers and state party chiefs, filed a large number of nomination papers proposing Gandhi's name for presidentship, making her re-election on May 28 a mere formality.
"Of course, she will be unanimously re-elected", said the Prime Minister who was the first among the party stalwarts to file the her nomination papers after a meeting with Gandhi at 10, Janpath.
Several Union ministers and party leaders expressed similar confidence. This has been the first organisational election in Congress after Gandhi led Congress-led United Progressive Alliance to power at the Centre and later renounced the post of Prime Minister by nominating Singh to the post.
The highlight of the exercise was that Congress' new generation of leaders led by Rahul Gandhi also filed a nomination proposing her name.
A total of 89 nominations were filed from different states and Union minister Oscar Fernandes, who is chairman of All India Congress Committee's central election authority, said that till Wednesday nominations in favour of Gandhi alone had been received.
The last date for filing nominations is May 27 and scrutiny begins the next day. Fernandes said if there was no other nomination besides Gandhi, a formal announcement of her re-election would be made on May 28.
