New Delhi:With Rajasthan Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot's exit from the Congress president polls, the focus has now shifted to another senior leader Digvijaya Singh who is pitted against MP Shashi Tharoor even as the two attempted to portray a camaraderie by meeting each other on Thursday.
Both of them are scheduled to submit their nomination papers for the upcoming presidential elections on Friday. Tharoor will visit 24 Akbar Road at 12.15 pm tomorrow. He will subsequently hold a press conference at 1.00 pm at his residence on 97 Lodhi Estate (opposite Airforce Bal Bharti Public School)
Singh will also file his nomination tomorrow between 11 am and 3 pm. Tharoor welcomed Singh's candidacy and said that both of them have agreed to consider it a friendly contest. On Thursday, Singh met Tharoor at the latter's residence.
"Received a visit from @digvijaya_28 this afternoon. I welcome his candidacy for the Presidency of our Party. We both agreed that ours is not a battle between rivals but a friendly contest among colleagues. All we both want is that whoever prevails. @incIndia will win," Tharoor wrote tweeting a photograph of the two embracing each other. Former Jharkhand MLA KN Tripathi also took nomination papers on Thursday and could be the third entrant.
Gehlot, meanwhile, announced he will not contest as he took moral responsibility for the political crisis in his state, and said the decision on whether he would remain CM would be taken by party chief Sonia Gandhi. "I will not contest Congress presidential poll in view of recent developments in Rajasthan. I am deeply pained by what has happened (in Rajasthan). I will carry this pain throughout my life," Gehlot told media after meeting Congress chief Sonia Gandhi at her 10 Janpath residence.