Congress President poll:Kharge vs Tharoor — new party chief to be declared; counting commences.
Shashi Tharoor, Mallikarjun Kharge: The Congress is set to get its first non-Gandhi president in over two decades today, with party leaders Mallikarjun Kharge and Shashi Tharoor vying for the top post. Over 9,500 votes cast across the country earlier this week, are presently being counted at the AICC headquarters in New Delhi. The new president will replace interim Congress chief Sonia Gandhi, who has been occupying the post ever since Rahul Gandhi stepped down after the 2019 Lok Sabha elections.
While Kharge has been considered the Gandhi family’s ‘unofficial official candidate’ with a large number of senior leaders backing him, Tharoor pitched himself as the candidate of change. This will be the sixth time in its nearly 137-year-old history that an electoral contest would decide who would take up the mantle of the party’s president.
The high-stakes contest between the two veteran leaders drew a massive turnout of voters Monday with close to 96 per cent of Pradesh Congress Committee delegates casting their ballot, according to the party. Of the 9,915 PCC delegates, 9,497 cast their votes across state capitals, including 87 at the AICC headquarters and 50 at the Yatra campsite, said Madhusudan Mistry, who is heading the party’s Central Election Authority (CEA).