Senior Congress leader Mallikarjun Kharge, who is reportedly being backed by the Gandhi family in the party’s presidential election race against Thiruvananthapuram MP Shashi Tharoor, was seen walking with them on Saturday. Rahul Gandhi During the couple’s visit to India in Karnataka. This is the first time that Kharge, who filed his nomination for Congress president election on September 30, participated in the Bharat Jodi Yatra, which is in his home state for more than 10 days.
before PTI The 80-year-old Kharge, along with Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi in his home state of Karnataka, had stayed away from the India Jodi Yatra as the party is keen to underscore fairness in the presidential elections.
Other party leaders DK Shivakumar, Siddaramaiah, KC Venugopal and Chhattisgarh CM Bhupesh Baghel also appeared in the padyatra today.
#watch , Congress Presidential candidate Mallikarjun Kharge joined the ‘Bharat Jodi Yatra’ with party MP Rahul Gandhi in Ballari district of Karnataka.
Chhattisgarh CM Bhupesh Baghel is also present. pic.twitter.com/pHRkv4Ye4I
— ANI (@ANI) 15 October 2022
Earlier, Congress presidential candidate Shashi Tharoor dismissed suggestions that his rival Mallikarjun Kharge was backed by the Nehru-Gandhi family, who would continue to take over the reins of the party despite being elected to the top post.
This is the 38th day of the 3,570 km long India Jodi Yatra, which started from Kanyakumari in Tamil Nadu and will end in Jammu and Kashmir. The padyatra, which has covered a distance of 600 km in the southern states of Tamil Nadu, Kerala and Karnataka, will pass through Karnataka till October 20 before turning into Telangana.
Weeks before filing nomination for Congress president election, Tharoor had also participated in the Bharat Jodi Yatra during the Kerala phase in the second week of September. The Thiruvananthapuram MP had filed his nomination on September 30.
Voting for the post of Congress President will be held on October 17. The counting of votes will take place on October 19 and the results will be declared on the same day. More than 9,000 Pradesh Congress Committee (PCC) representatives will vote in the election.
Rahul Gandhi had earlier dismissed claims that the next Congress president would be “remote-controlled” by his family, saying both the claimants – Kharge and Tharoor – were people of stature and understanding and it was disrespectful to him to suggest such a thing. .
Tharoor, a former diplomat, has promised to bring change in the party and said leaders like Kharge cannot bring change and will continue with the system. Kharge, on the other hand, said the fight is against the RSS and the BJP but not among themselves.
Even if one of the two – Kharge or Tharoor – withdraws his candidature, it is certain that a leader from a non-Gandhi family background will take over the reins of the Congress after two decades.
In the history of the party which is more than 130 years old, Sonia Gandhi has been the party president for the longest time. He took control of the party from Sitaram Kesari after the 1998 Lok Sabha elections, and has since become Congress president except for a two-year period between 2017-19.
The last election was held in November 2000 when Sonia Gandhi defeated Jitendra Prasad by a huge margin.
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