New Delhi: On a day when nearly 9,500 Congress delegates voted to elect a non-Gandhi to lead the party after a gap of two and a half decades, interim party president Sonia Gandhi said she had been “long waiting” for this moment. It was time”.
There will be a 48-hour wait to know whether Mallikarjun Kharge, seen as the unofficial candidate of the Gandhi family, or Shashi Tharoor, a member of G-23, a ginger group, heads the party for the next five years. .
A total of 87 delegates voted on Monday at the All India Congress Committee (AICC) headquarters in Delhi, while 50 delegates who were part of the Bharat Jodi Yatra voted in Ballari.
After casting her vote in the Congress Presidential election, Sonia said, “I have been waiting for this day for a long time.”
While Sonia and her daughter Priyanka Gandhi Vadra cast their vote at the Congress headquarters in Delhi, Rahul Gandhi cast his vote in Karnataka, where he is leading the Bharat Jodi Yatra.
Images showed Rahul waiting in line outside a container that had been converted into a polling booth. The yatra that began in September had a halt at Ballari. It will resume on Tuesday and leave for Andhra Pradesh.
Back in Delhi, former Union minister P. Chidambaram was the first voter, who turned up soon after polling began at 10 am. Former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh also cast his vote in Delhi. Other senior leaders who voted in Delhi include Ambika Soni, Jairam Ramesh, Mukul Wasnik, Anand Sharma, Abhishek Manu Singhvi and Meira Kumar.
Two candidates, Mallikarjun Kharge and Shashi Tharoor, cast their votes at their state headquarters in Bengaluru and Thiruvananthapuram respectively. Before voting, the two talked on the phone and wished each other the best.
The campaign for the elections, however, faced some hurdles and Tharoor claimed that senior leaders were not coming out in his support. Later, both candidates stated that the election was within one party and that they would continue to work for the party, even if whoever wins.
’96 percent turnout’
Speaking to the press after the close of polling, Congress Election Authority (CEA) President Madhusudan Mistry informed that around 96 per cent turnout was recorded as per the provisional numbers.
Mistry said a total of 9,915 delegates were registered to vote. Of these, about 9,500 delegates voted.
Regarding the counting process, Mistry said there would be no way to determine how many votes a candidate got from each state.
“The first ballot box will be opened and its contents will be emptied onto a cloth. Thereafter, the second ballot box will be opened and its contents will be emptied over the contents of the first box. The same will happen for the third box, the fourth box and so on 36 times. This is being done to ensure that the secrecy of the ballot is maintained,” he said.
(Edited by Tony Rae)
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