NEW DELHI: Ahead of the Congress Presidential elections, Lok Sabha MP Shashi Tharoor fired another salvo at his opponents alleging that he is facing ‘differential treatment’ from some of the state chiefs during his campaigning.
The AICC presidential election, which is taking place after a long gap of over two decades, is scheduled for October 17. Tharoor, who is in the capital to seek votes from Delhi Pradesh Congress Committee (DPCC), also reiterated his claim of an ‘uneven playing field’ in the party’s internal elections.
The Thiruvananthapuram MP, who is pitted against senior leader Mallikarjun Kharge, lamented that several PCC chiefs and senior leaders were not available during his visits to those states. “Some PCC chiefs even had meetings in Kharge’s favour and it disturbed the level playing field,” he said.
Recently, Tharoor openly spoke about how senior leaders were conspicuously missing during his campaigning in Kerala and Tamil Nadu. Many senior leaders in Kerala — the home turf of Tharoor — including former Union Minister A K Antony, KPCC President K Sudhakaran, and former Opposition leader Ramesh Chennithala have spoken in favour of Kharge. Chennithala has been accompanying Kharge to some states for campaigning too.
Tharoor had also raised complaints with the central election authority Madhusudan Mistry regarding poll code violations citing the endorsement of Kharge by several PCC chiefs for the president post. The CEC, last week, had issued strict guidelines barring Congress office bearers from campaigning in favour of any candidates.
Tharoor also said that he was unable to meet many delegates as their contact details were ‘missing’ from the list. “There were incomplete contact details in the list of delegates that we received. Some lists had names but no contact numbers, some had names but no proper address,” he said.
In an interview with this paper, Tharoor said that the contact details of only 10 per cent out of 9,000 delegates were available to him.
However, he said that he did not blame anyone as the election is being held after 22 years. Responding to Tharoor’s remarks, Kharge reiterated that there was no difference between them.
“We are brothers. Someone can speak in a different manner, I can do it in a different way,” he said.
Meanwhile, another leader, who was a part of ginger group called G-23, and supported Kharge’s candidature, told this paper that Tharoor was trying to consolidate his political capital through this campaign. The leader also claimed that instead of contacting voters, Tharoor has been holding public meetings and events to further his popularity.
Tharoor was part of the G-23 group, which sought deep reforms in the party. Most of Tharoor’s colleagues in the group, including Anand Sharma, Bhupinder Singh Hooda, Prithviraj Chavan, and Manish Tewari have endorsed Kharge's candidature.