New Delhi: Mallikarjun Kharge was expectedly elected new Congress president after he trounced rival Shashi Tharoor in a landslide in the party’s internal elections, bringing down the curtains on the extended tenure of Sonia Gandhi and giving the party its first non-Gandhi head in 24 years.
Kharge is Congress’s third Dalit chief after D Sanjivaiah (1962) and Jagjivan Ram in (December 1969).
After around five hours of counting of ballots, AICC election authority chairman Madhusudan Mistry announced that Kharge received 7,897 (84%) out of the total 9,385 votes polled, against Tharoor’s 1,072. After scrutiny, 416 votes were declared invalid.
In his first remarks after becoming the Congress president-elect, Mallikarjun Kharge spotlighted “the sacrifice of Sonia Gandhi who for 23 years nourished the party”, and “the initiative of Rahul Gandhi” who is trying to create a people movement against bigotry — thereby reiterating the primacy the Gandhi family even as it recedes from formal authority. ..
For the affable octogenarian, who assumes charge of Congress at its most critical juncture, the trickiest challenge is posed by the experiment of installing a non-Gandhi president, after a break of 24 years
Speaking to the media, Kharge, who will assume office on October 26, sought to reach out to workers with a unity call.
Revival of Congress has begun: Tharoor
Runner-up in the Congress president poll, Shashi Tharoor on Wednesday thanked his supporters, and said that the elections will galvanise the party and its revival has begun.
“I have always expressed the view that these elections, irrespective of the outcome, must ultimately strengthen the party. It gives me immense personal satisfaction that this has clearly been the case. Our democratic contest has galvanized vibrancy at all levels and has prompted a healthy and constructive discussion on change, which I believe will serve the party in good stead in the future,” he wrote in a letter.
“I believe the revival of our party has truly begun today,” Tharoor said after losing to Mallikarjun Kharge.
