New Delhi: Congress, the grand old party, is set to elect a non-Gandhi president for the first time in more than 24 years.Senior party leaders Mallikarjun Kharge and Shashi Tharoor are the two candidates competing for the post of the All India Congress Committee (AICC) chief. The voting took place on October 17, Monday. The results of the election will be declared on October 19.Former Union minister Ambika Soni told The Wire: “Both candidates have unique selling points, and both are capable of becoming the next Congress president. Kharge has been winning elections for the past 40 years; he has also been the leader of the Opposition in both houses numerous times, whereas Tharoor is an excellent speaker who has won three Lok Sabha elections.”For the first time in 24 years, a person not from the Gandhi family will be elected president. This is the sixth election for the party’s presidential candidate. This is the sixth time in the party’s 137-year history that elections will be held for the president’s post.Tharoor, who filed his nomination papers on September 30, said that he had received a list of delegates but there were no addresses or phone numbers, making it difficult for his team to reach out to delegates.After lodging a complaint with the poll authority, he said the team was given another list, which, interestingly, did not include the 500 names from the first list, but instead included another 600 or so names.When asked about these allegations, former Union minister Salman Khurshid told The Wire, “I also did not receive the list of delegates. Why would one require a list of delegates? There is no mystery here. Everyone knows who the Congress party’s delegates are. Let the Congress delegate decide who is best for them.”The Wire also asked Khurshid about the ‘Kamaraj formula’, under in which the Congress chose a leader with consensus. If the Congress does not choose a leader with a consensus this time, does that mean the Congress is divided?Khurshid responded to this query, saying: “A consensus is good, but there are people who allege that we are pressuring someone inside the party not to become the Congress president. So it’s good that we have elections.”
