NEW DELHI: After a long gap of 24 years, the Congress on Monday held an internal election to choose a non-Gandhi family member as party chief. The contest between veteran leader Mallikarjun Kharge and Lok Sabha MP Shashi Tharoor saw 96% turnout among the delegates. The winner will succeed Sonia Gandhi as party chief. The election comes three years after Rahul Gandhi resigned from the top post taking responsibility for the 2019 Lok Sabha poll debacle.
While Kharge and Tharoor cast votes in their home states, those who turned up in AICC headquarters include former PM Manmohan Singh, P Chidambaram, and Sonia Gandhi along with Priyanka Gandhi.
After casting her vote, Sonia Gandhi said that she has been waiting for the elections for a long time.
Addressing a press conference, the party’s central election authority chairman Madhusudan Mistry said the Congress has set a model for other parties by holding an open and transparent election. “Election was done through a secret ballot. Ballots will be counted by mixing and there is no way to find out which PCCs voted for whom,” he said, adding 50 delegates including Rahul voted at the booths at Bharat Jodo Yatra camp.
Though the Gandhis have claimed they were neutral, Kharge is widely seen as the ‘official candidate’ endorsed by the high command. While Tharoor focused on decentralisation and reforms, Kharge promised to follow the Udaipur ‘Chitnan Shivir’, in their frenetic campaigns to reach out to the 9,900- strong electorate.
However, there were question marks over the fairness of the polls with Tharoor approaching the election authority over the ‘deferential treatment’ by senior leaders in several states and discrepancies in the electoral rolls.
Senior Congress leader and in-charge of Madhya Pradesh J P Agarwal said, “Elections to the CWC will be decided by the High Command. The president will take everyone along.”
9,500 out of 9,916 delegates vote
Of the total 9,916 PCC delegates that form the electoral college to pick the party chief in a secret ballot, over 9,500 cast their ballot