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Cong President Polls: Jairam tweets pic of ‘meeting room’ turned into polling booth in K'taka; Rahul to cast vote here
Congress veterans Mallikarjun Kharge and Shashi Tharoor are battling to become the next president of their party, and succeed Sonia Gandhi as the first non-Gandhi chief in more than 24 years.
Congress MP Jairam Ramesh took to Twitter on Monday to share a picture of the polling booth, where Rahul Gandhi will cast his vote for the election between Shashi Tharoor and Mallikarjun Kharge for the post of the party's president. The polling process, which has now begun and will end at 4pm, will witness more than 9,000 Congress delegates vote to choose their 37th president to succeed interim chief Sonia Gandhi.
Rahul will cast his vote at a campsite of the grand old party's ongoing ‘Bharat Jodo Yatra’ in Bellary, Karnataka.
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“This is the polling booth at the Bharat Jodo Yatra campsite in Sanganakallu that will open at 10am. It is the meeting room container converted into a polling booth for the Congress Presidential elections,” the MP's post on the micro-blogging site read.
On Sunday, Ramesh catered to queries pertaining to the location from where the former Congress chief will cast his vote. Saying there should be no “speculation”, the party veteran tweeted that Rahul would vote from the Sanganakallu campsite “along with around 40 Bharat Yatris who are PCC (Pradesh Congress Committee) delegates.”
The battle for the top post of the grand old party is happening amid a gripping crisis that Congress faces, including failing to win adequate seats in the last two general elections and also performing poorly in the five states that went into polls earlier this year - getting dethroned in Punjab.
Whoever emerges as the winner between Kharge and Tharoor will take over as the first non-Gandhi president of Congress in over 24 years.
The two leaders have campaigned in several states leading up to the election today, and there has been prominent disparity in the nature of their promises. Kharge, who is considered to be the favourite, said he will have no shame in taking suggestions from the Gandhi family and would walk in the footsteps of his party's ‘Chintan Shivir’ declarations announced at a three-day event in Rajasthan earlier this year. Meanwhile, Tharoor has vowed for a constructive change in Congress, with the agenda to make it more inclusive and modern. It will be a tough battle between the two veterans with Tharoor expected to enjoy the backing of the youth Congress leaders.
Tharoor and Kharge have both, however, reiterated that none of the Gandhi family members are favouring either of them. Tharoor has also repeatedly said that irrespective of the result, he will continue to work together with Kharge for the advancement of their party.
While Rahul will cast his vote in Karnataka, his mother Sonia, and sister and Congress general secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra are likely to do so at the AICC headquarters in Delhi.
The results of the election will be declared on October 19.
(With inputs from PTI)
