It's Kharge vs Tharoor today: Here's a lowdown on Congress president election

Congress interim president Sonia Gandhi, general secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra and former PM Manmohan Singh will also cast their vote at the AICC headquarters in Delhi.

After years of internal conflicts and pandemic-led delay, the All India Congress Committee is all set to elect its new president on Monday. Congress veteran Mallikarjun Kharge is in a head-to-head battle against Kerala MP Shashi Tharoor to replace the post currently held by interim chief Sonia Gandhi.

Congress Lok Sabha MP Shashi Tharoor and veteran leader Mallikarjun Kharge go head-to-head tomorrow for the Congress president post. (ANI file Photo)

Preparations are in place for voting at polling stations across the country, scheduled to begin at 10am. Over 9,000 Pradesh Congress Committee (PCC) delegates from the electoral college are going to pick the party chief in a secret ballot.

Polling process

“Between 10am to 4pm tomorrow, delegates from all states will vote at their respective polling stations with a 'tick' mark for the candidate they support. Arrangements have been made for smooth polling,” Madhusudan Mistry, Central Election Authority chairman of the Congress, told news agency ANI.

Once the polling is over, the ballot boxes will be collected and sent to the Delhi headquarters of the Congress, Mistry said. The counting of votes will be held on October 19.

“Ballot boxes will reach Delhi on Oct 18 and counting of votes will be done on October 19. Polling booth was set up at AICC as well, where over 50 people will vote. The whole polling process will be fair and free, no doubt about that,” he said.

Mistry had earlier asserted that the presidential polls will be held by a secret ballot and no one will get to know who voted for whom.

Non-Gandhi president

For the first time in 24 years, the grand old party will elect a non-Gandhi president tomorrow. Congress interim president Sonia Gandhi, general secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra and former PM Manmohan Singh will also cast their vote at the AICC headquarters in Delhi.

Meanwhile, for former Congress president Rahul Gandhi, who is continuing on his 'Bharat Jodo Yatra', a polling booth has been set up where he is, Madhusudan Mistry said.

While Tharoor took on a roaring campaign, pitching himself as the candidate ‘of change’, experts have termed Kharge as the firm favourite due to his perceived proximity to the Gandhis and a strong backing by senior party leaders.

Tharoor, who hails from the Nair community of Kerala, has studied at premier institutions in India and the US, including St Stephen's College in Delhi and Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy in Massachusetts. He completed a Ph.D. in 1978 from the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy.

Meanwhile, Kharge has more than 50 years of experience in politics. He has been elected MLA for nine times in a row and has been pitched as a Dalit leader by his party colleagues. Kharge has seen a steady rise in his career graph from humble beginnings as a union leader in his home-district of Gulbarga, now Kalaburagi, in Karnataka.