Thursday, May 26 2005 13:27 Hrs (IST) - World Time -

New Delhi: All India Mahila Congress (AIMC) today (May 26, 2005) filed a set of papers on behalf of Congress chief Sonia Gandhi for the post of party presidentship taking the total nominations to 90.

AIMC president Rita Bahuguna and other office bearers of Congress' woman wing proposed the name of Sonia and submitted it to Anwara Taimur and A P Shetty, deputy chairpersons of the Central Election Authority of the party.

As many as 89 sets of nomination papers proposed by senior party leaders, including Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, besides Congress chief's son Rahul Gandhi, were submitted yesterday (May 25, 2005) on her behalf at the Congress headquarters in New Delhi.

Sonia is set to be re-elected Congress president with the Prime Minister and the party's top brass backing her candidature for the top organisational post.

Led by Singh, the party leaders, including CWC members, Congress Chief Ministers, Union Ministers and Pradesh Congress Committee (PCC) chiefs, had filed nomination papers proposing Sonia's name for the presidentship of the party, making her re-election on May 28 a mere formality.

This has been the first organisational poll in the party after Congress-led United Progressive Alliance (UPA) came to power at the Centre. The last date for filing nominations is May 27 and scrutiny would take place the next day and if there was no other nomination besides Sonia, a formal announcement of her re-election would be made on May 28.