E-Paper
Polling to elect Congress president set to commence
The candidates covered various states in their campaigns even as the Gandhi family maintained a distance from the process
The polling to elect Congress’s 37th president since Independence is being held on Monday at the party’s state offices and the headquarters in New Delhi. At least 9,200 delegates are eligible to vote for the two candidates — lawmakers Mallikarjun Kharge and Shashi Tharoor.
The candidates covered various states in their campaigns even as the Gandhi family maintained a distance from the process. Many party insiders see Kharge as the possible winner with backing by a large section of the party establishment. Tharoor is expected to give a tougher fight to Kharge.
The last such election was between Sonia Gandhi and Jitendra Prasada in 2000. Gandhi got 7,448 out of 7,700 votes while Prasada got only 94. The remaining votes were either invalid or not polled.
Sonia Gandhi and the party’s general secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra are set to vote at the headquarters. Rahul Gandhi was expected to vote at a special polling booth at the party’s “Bharat Jodo Yatra” campsite at Sanganakallu in Karnataka.
The last non-Gandhi Congress president, Sitaram Kesri, headed the party for under two years before he was unceremoniously removed in March 1998. Sonia Gandhi succeeded him as the party chief and went on to become the longest-serving president of Congress for 22 years. Indira Gandhi headed the party for seven and Jawaharlal Nehru for eight years.
The new party president is being elected as the Congress has failed to reach a triple-digit tally in the last two national elections for the first time in history. The Congress lost 37 assembly elections since 2014.
On the last day of campaigning, Kharge posted a video mostly of clips of his participation in the Bharat Jodo Yatra with an appeal to vote for him. He will vote in Bengaluru.
Tharoor, who campaigned in Assam on the last day before the election, alleged the election was an “uneven playing field”.
