BENGALURU: As voters lined up at polling booths to cast their franchise for the post of AICC president in Bengaluru on Monday, it was evident that party senior leader from Karnataka Mallikarjun Kharge is the clear favourite. Kharge, opposition leader Siddarmaiah, Congress state president DK Shivakumar, opposition leader in the Council BK Hariprasad and other senior leaders stood in a queue and cast their votes in Bengaluru.
The ballot papers from the three polling booths at the Congress office were collected in a sealed container and taken to New Delhi by Pradesh Returning Officer Sudharshan Nachiappan, who is a former union minister. On Monday evening, Nachiappan left for Delhi with the container after it was sealed in the presence of important Congress leaders, including Kharge. The boxes collected from across the country will be kept in a strongroom till Wednesday, when they will be opened for counting by Madhusudan Mistry, chairman of the AICC Election Authority.
An internal assessment, like an exit poll, was conducted after the election concluded at 4 pm. It revealed that close to 99.9 per cent of support from Karnataka was for Kharge. Sources said that out of 503 votes, 501 were cast on Monday and an overwhelming number confirmed that they had voted for Kharge. Information from other states, including Kerala, revealed that Kharge had scored there as well.
An unofficial assessment is that Kharge could garner over 8,000 votes out of nearly 9,000 polled from different parts of the country, while the other contestant, Shashi Tharoor, could get less than 500 votes.
In Karnataka, among the absentees were Prashant Deshpande, son of RV Deshpande, and Nivedith Alva,
son of former union minister Margaret Alva. They had already informed party leaders that they would be out of the country.