Voting for Cong presidential polls ends. Results on ‘Kharge vs Tharoor’ duel on Oct 19

Contenders for the 37th Congress president – Shashi Tharoor and Mallikarjun Kharge – will replace Sonia Gandhi who is currently the interim chief.

Voting for the Congress presidential elections came to an end around 4.30pm on Monday. Results for the top post in the grand old party will be out on Wednesday (October 19). Contenders for the 37th Congress president – Shashi Tharoor and Mallikarjun Kharge – will replace Sonia Gandhi who is currently the interim chief.

Congress presidential candidate Shashi Tharoor goes through the election procedure to cast his vote, at Indira Bhavan, in Thiruvananthapuram. (ANI Photo)

Till 3 pm, the voter turnout for the election being held after more than two decades was at 71%, the party said.

Voting for the elections started at 10am. Several Congress leaders, including members of the Gandhi family (Sonia Gandhi, Rahul Gandhi and Priyanka Gandhi) exercised their franchise to pick Tharoor or Kharge as the next party president.

Tharoor and Kharge, both of whom had campaigned extensively in the run-up to the elections, also cast their votes during the day.

Congress' central election authority chairman Madhusudan Mistry said on Monday that he was satisfied with the election process.

“It is going quite smoothly everywhere, we don't have any kind of adverse information from anywhere. Even old delegates are standing in queue to cast their vote, there is a lot of enthusiasm in delegates to cast their vote,” Mistry told the news agency PTI.

"The ballot boxes will arrive here by Tuesday evening… whenever the counting is over on October 19, we will declare the result," he added.

The presidential elections of the Congress come at a time when the grand old party is going through an internal crisis. Apart from the infighting, the new Congress president also has the challenge of securing victory in upcoming elections in states, including Gujarat, Himachal Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh, along with the Lok Sabha elections in 2024.

In recent years, many prominent leaders left the party with the latest being Ghulam Nabi Azad, who was associated with the Congress for more than 50 years.

(With inputs from agencies)