Kozhikode: A senior Congress lawmaker from Kerala claimed most of his colleagues will vote for Shashi Tharoor in Monday's party poll to elect a new president.
Tharoor is contesting the Congress presidential poll against party veteran Mallikarjun Kharge.
MK Ragahavan, MP, asserted that Congress leaders from Kerala will definitely vote for Tharoor even if they may publicly take a stand against him.
"Tharoor is Kerala's pride," Ragahavan said while comparing him to former Indian Defence Minister VK Krishna Menon who had distinguished himself in the academic and public spheres.
The MP representing the Kozhikode also dismissed the charge that Tharoor has little experience in organisational activities of the party. He was referring to allegations on such lines by a few prominent Congress leaders across the country.
Mallikarjun Kharge and Shashi Tharoor are set to lock horns in the election to the Congress president’s position to be held today, after two decades.
The voting will be on from 10 am to 4 pm today at all Pradesh Congress Committees (PCC) including Thiruvananthapuram and in Delhi AICC headquarters. There are a total of 9308 voters.
The votes will be counted on Wednesday at 10 am and the results will be declared in the evening on the same day.
The previous election for the post of Congress president was held in 2000 between Sonia Gandhi and Jithendra Prasad. Then, Sonia Gandhi won the position with a massive majority.
It is after 24 years that the Congress party is preparing to accept a president outside the Gandhi family. Sitaram Kesari (1996 – 98) was the last to be the Congress president outside the Gandhi family.
The Congress central election committee approved Tharoor’s demand to change the way of marking the vote in the party presidential polls.
Congress central election authority chairman Madhusudhan Mistry directed the electors to put a tick mark against their preferred candidate instead of writing ‘1’, as decided earlier.
Tharoor’s team had given a complaint to Mistry questioning the earlier decision to write ‘1’ citing that it was against the party’s constitution. Tharoor faction pointed out that it was giving an undue benefit to Kharge.
Kharge’s name is listed first on the ballot paper. As per the Constitution, it is said when there are more than 2 candidates, the vote must be marked as per priority as 1,2 etc. Tharoor’s team pointed out that there is no need for that when there are only two candidates.
