Former minister and senior Congress leader Mallikarjun Kharge is all set to take charge as the president of Congress. In a twin contest Kharge won 7897 votes while Shashi Tharoor got around 1000 votes. Kharge won eight times more votes than Tharoor while  416 votes were rejected. With Kharge’s election Congress has got a non-Gandhi president after 24 years.

More than 9,500 votes were cast on Monday to choose between senior leaders Mallikarjun Kharge and Shashi Tharoor.

Many congratulations to Shri @kharge for being elected as the President of Indian National Congress.

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Best wishes from the entire Congress family!#CongressPresidentKharge pic.twitter.com/PbGyNf0HRe

— Congress (@INCIndia) October 19, 2022

Meanwhile, Tharoor’s team has written to the party’s Chief Electoral Authority, alleging rigging in the conduct of elections in Uttar Pradesh and demanded all votes in the state be treated as invalid. The team has also raised serious issues in the conduct  of elections in Punjab and Telangana.

Shashi Tharoor’s polling agent, Salman Soz has made serious allegations amidst the counting of votes. According to sources, Salman Soz has made allegations of rigging in elections in three states of Punjab, UP, Telangana. According to the sources Salman Soz has also written a letter to the President of the Congress Central Election Authority, Madhusudan Mistry, raising objections to the election process.

For the sixth time in the 137-year history of the Congress party, elections have been held for the post of president. According to party general secretary Jairam Ramesh, elections for the post of president have been held in 1939, 1950, 1977, 1997 and 2000.

Around 9500 delegates (members of the electoral college), including Congress president Sonia Gandhi, former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, former Congress president Rahul Gandhi and several other senior leaders, voted on Monday (October 17) to elect the new party president.

Mallikarjun Kharge was seen as the favourite, throughout the election campaign. The elected president will take charge after Diwali in the presence of senior leaders in a programme at the Congress headquarters.

Kharge will take place of Sonia Gandhi, who had been serving as interim president after Rahul Gandhi stepped down from the post following the party’s debacle in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections.