The high-staKES contest between frontrunner Mallikarjun Kharge and Shashi Tharoor within the election for the submit of Congress president drew an enormous turnout of voters Monday with near 96 per cent of Pradesh Congress Committee delegates casting their poll, in keeping with the social gathering.
Setting the stage for the counting Wednesday, a visibly joyful Sonia Gandhi, the outgoing Congress president, stated after casting her vote on the AICC headquarters in Delhi: “I’ve been ready for a very long time for this present day.” The outcome will mark the primary time the social gathering will get a non-Gandhi on the helm after greater than 20 years.
Among the many different early voters on the 24, Akbar Street, social gathering headquarters have been an ailing former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, and Sonia’s daughter and AICC common secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra. Former Congress president Rahul Gandhi voted at a specifically set-up sales space on the Bharat Jodo Yatra campsite in Sanganakallu in Karnataka’s Ballari.
Of the 9,915 PCC delegates, 9,497 forged their votes throughout state capitals, together with 87 on the AICC headquarters and 50 on the Yatra campsite, stated Madhusudan Mistry, who’s heading the social gathering’s Central Election Authority (CEA).
Kharge voted in Bengaluru and Tharoor in Thiruvananthapuram, each at PCC workplaces. Minutes earlier than voting started, Tharoor rang up Kharge to convey his needs.
Whereas disclosing for the primary time the variety of PCC delegates who have been eligible to vote, Mistry stated the turnout figures have been provisional and might be revised. He additionally confirmed that the poll containers can be dropped at Delhi the place the papers can be blended earlier than counting to make sure secrecy.
The Kharge camp remained supremely assured of victory. The Tharoor marketing campaign stated there was a “very robust groundswell of help” in his favour and that they’d seen a “larger than anticipated” stage of pleasure over his candidature within the ultimate marketing campaign leg.
Mistry stated the elections have been an open course of and held in a peaceable method. “The Congress social gathering has proven what inside democracy is and different events that wish to take a lesson from it, can achieve this,” he stated.
Mistry additionally performed down expenses from the Tharoor camp that there was lack of a stage taking part in area, in reference to senior leaders expressing help for Kharge, the unofficial official candidate.
“With regards to stage taking part in area, there are some issues that have an effect on, which we rectify instantly. There have been sure complaints, which have been associated to the behaviour of the voter. If I such as you, I’ll go to your assembly… if I don’t like, I can’t go to your assembly… there, the CEA has no position. The CEA can’t power you to go to ‘X’ assembly and ‘Y’ assembly,” he stated.
After polling began at 10 am, the primary voter on the AICC headquarters was former Union minister and CWC member P Chidambaram, adopted by Jairam Ramesh. Rajasthan Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot forged his vote on the social gathering headquarters in Jaipur, and his Chhattisgarh counterpart Bhupesh Baghel on the PCC workplace in Raipur.
The Congress is witnessing an election to the submit of social gathering president after 22 years. The final non-Gandhi Congress president was Sitaram Kesri, from whom Sonia Gandhi took over in March 1998. The final such contest was in 2000 when Jitendra Prasada confronted off with Sonia Gandhi, two years into her presidency.
In 2017, Sonia handed over the mantle to Rahul Gandhi however he stepped down two years later within the wake of the social gathering’s humiliating defeat within the Lok Sabha elections.