It was expected that CWC would authorize party president Sonia Gandhi to decide on the presidential candidate. But what surprised was the choice of Pranab Mukherjee to move such a resolution.
No doubt, He is senior-most member of the CWC, Leader of the Lok Sabha and moved such resolutions at critical junctures in the past. Since Pranab Mukherjee himself is a strong contender for the top slot, it was expected that the resolution would be moved by either home minister P Chidambaram or Power Minister Sushil Kumar Shinde or Motilal Vora.
Also to remember is the fact that this was contrary to the situation that existed in 2007 where the decision was taken by the coordination committee of the Left parties and the UPA parties. In fact, Pratibha Patil's name for the president's post was suggested by CPI general secretary A B Bardhan. It surfaced mysteriously.
But Mukherjee was completely unruffled and asserted, after a big laugh, "She (Sonia Gandhi) is the leader of the UPA, she will consider all choices. The Party nominee is always decided by the Congress President."
It is now learnt that a meeting of the UPA will be called by Sonia Gandhi shortly to seek a similar mandate to select presidential and vice presidential candidates. Only after being armed with these resoltuion, the congress president will unfold the names of the presidential candidate.
Since the process of byelections will be over only on June 15, the new chief election commissioner will also take over on June 13 and PM is scheduled to embark on an official tour of Mexico and Brazil on June 16, there are chances that the decision may be announced on June 15 itself.
