IMPHAL, Sep 13: All speculations and crises in the election of Manipur Pradesh Congress Committee (MPCC) have ended following the instruction from the All India Congress Committee (AICC) to set up Gaikhangam as the consensus candidate for the post of president, while E. Dwijamani and Kh. Ratankumar are to take the post of vice-president and treasurer respectively.
All the three consensus candidates filed their nomination papers today evening on the last day of filing nomination papers. The scrutiny of all the three candidates will be held tomorrow.
There was much deliberation and controversy over the matter of MPCC election for the last many days. The AICC even deputed a election observer for the purpose of sorting out a consensus presidential candidate after hearing the individual opinions of the PCC members and DCC presidents who are the electorates of the presidential election.
The MPCC election had almost created pandemonium amongst the Congress workers and a protest was also staged this afternoon by some Congress workers near the Congress Bhavan demanding the Congress authority to conduct the MPCC election in free and fair manner. However, the workers were called in for a meeting with the chief minister O. Ibobi along with election observer Sanjay Dadlika at the Congress Bhavan.
The meeting lasted for many hours in the evening during which the controversial matter of election was settled and subsequently the three consensus candidates filed their nomination papers.
There was a speculation that the incumbent president Gaikhangam would be made the president and Dwijamani as the working president. However, the AICC directed the election authority to choose Gaikhangam as the consensus candidate for the post of president while Dwijamani for the post of vice-president.
Gaikhangam came to the Congress Bhavan much later after some senior Congress leaders brought him from his residence.
Speaking to mediapersons after filing the nomination paper for the post of vice-president, MLA E. Dwijamani stated that there are no differences among the Congress workers regarding the MPCC election. The workers are obliged to follow the instructions of the AICC and so he is contended with the post of vice-president, he said.
However, he maintained that after being elected as the vice-president of MPCC he would work as the working-president in the true spirit of the Congress Party. Whatever controversies were there earlier are now over and the MPCC would function well after the final result of the election is declared, Dwijamani asserted.