The high-profile Congress presidential elections on Monday witnessed high enthusiasm with 96% voting turnout, paving the way for electing a non-Gandhi party chief in more than 22 years.
96% of voting have taken place across states and around 9,500 delegates have voted today. “No untoward incident occurred…3 ballot boxes have been received- 87 people voted at AICC, Delhi,” Congress Central Election Authority chairman Madhusudan Mistry has said.
The results of the election will be declared on 19 October.
Both the contenders Mallikarjun Kharge and Sashi Tharoor expressed happiness over the poll process and said whatever would be the outcome the election would only strengthen the party.
Congress president Sonia Gandhi cast her vote in the party’s polls to elect her successor. “I have been waiting for a long time,” Sonia Gandhi said when she was asked by mediapersons on the poll. Sonia Gandhi cast her vote at the headquarters of the All India Congress Committee (AICC). Congress general secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra also accompanied her mother Sonia Gandhi and cast her vote for the next president.
Congress MPs P Chidambaram, Jairam Ramesh and other party leaders have also cast their votes at the AICC office in Delhi.
Shashi Tharoor, who is pitted against party veteran Mallikarjun Kharge for the post of the Congress president, said the revival of the grand old party has begun whatever the outcome and that the fate of the Indian National Congress lies in the hands of the party workers.
“I am confident. The fate of the Congress party is in the hands of party workers. The odds have been stacked against us as the party leaders and establishment were overwhelmingly with the other candidate,” Tharoor told mediapersons at Kerala’s Thiruvananthapuram.
Kharge also said : “It is part of our internal election. Whatever we said to each other is on a friendly note. Together we have to build the party. (Shashi) Tharoor telephoned me and wished me luck and I also said the same.”
Both Kharge and Tharoor campaigned ahead of the polls and Congress will get a leader outside the Nehru-Gandhi family as president after 24 years. The new party chief will have his task cut out with assembly elections having already been declared in Himachal Pradesh and poised to be held in Gujarat.
The presidential election has taken place at the culmination of the party’s organisational elections and has come at a time Congress faces multiple challenges.
Congress interim chief Sonia Gandhi was among those who cast their ballot.
