Senior Congress leaders Mallikarjun Kharge and Shashi Tharoor will face-off🦋 in an electoral contest on Monday for the post of AICC chief, as the party gets set to have a non-Gan🎶dhi president in over 24 years.
Over 9,000 Pradesh Congress Committee (PCC) delegates 🐭 form the electoral college to pick the party chief in a secret ballot.
Voting would also take place at the AICC headqu♈arters here and at over𝔍 65 polling booths across the country in an electoral contest which is taking place for the sixth time in the party's 137-year history.
While party chief Sonia Gandhi and Congress general secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vaᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚ𒀱ᩚᩚᩚdra are expected to vote at ♒the AICC headquarters here, Rahul Gandhi will be voting at the Bharat Jodo Yatra campsite in Karnataka's Sanganakallu in Ballari along with around 40 other Bharat Yatris who are PCC delegates.
Kharge is considered the firm favourite for his perceived proximity to the Ga🐼ndhis and backing by senior leaders, even as Tharoor has pitched himself as the candidate of change.
During the campaign🌺, even though Tharoor has raised issues of uneven playing field, both candidates and the party have maintained that the Gandhis are neutral and that there is no "🐭official candidate".
Asked about the significance of the polls, Congress general secretary in-charge communications Jairam Ramesh told PTI that he has always believed in the Congress model of evolving a consens🤪us for such positions.
The most famous practitioner of this approach in the post-Nehruvian era was K Kamara💞j, he noted.
"As we approach E-Day🅰 tomorrow this belief has become even more stronger. The reasons for this are pretty obvious," Ramesh said wit🙈hout elaborating.
"I am not at all convinced that organisational elections actually strengthen the organisation in any way. They may serve individual purp𒆙oses but their꧃ value in building a collective spirit is doubtful," he said.
Even so,ꦅ the very fact that elections are taking place are of some ♏significance, he added.
"But I consider them of less institutional🍨 importance than the historic Bharat Jodo Yatra which is a transformational initiative for the Congress and for Indian politics as well," Ramesh said.
Though the campaign has been larꦜgely about a roadmap for the party which the two candidates have elaborated upon during their meetings with PCC delegates at various headquarters of the party in states, it has also seen complaints and claims of an uneven playing field by the Tharoor camp.
The contrast in the campaigns has been stark♊, while Kharge's campaign has seen several senior leaders, PCC chiefs and top leaders receiving him at the state headquarters visited by him, Tharoor has mostly been welcomed by young PCC delegates with PCC ch༒iefs mostly absent from his events.
💯Tharoor has underlined during his campaign that he is the candidate of change while Kharge of status quo.
He𒁏 has also claimed that youngsters and people in lower levels of the party are supportiౠng him, while seniors are backing his rival.
Kharge, on his part, has highlighted his experience, coming up the organizational ranks over decades𒉰 and his ability to𝓡 take everyone along.
Both the leaders have emphasised that the Gandhis hold a special place in th🌠e party with Kharge saying that he would seek their "guidance" and "suggestio⛦ns", and Tharoor asserting that no Congress president can function keeping a distance from the Gandhi family as their DNA runs in the party's blood.
The last electoral contestꦦ for the top post of the party took place in 2000 when Jitendra Prasada had suffered a crushing defeat at the hands of Sonia Gandhi.
Also, w💃ith Sonia Gandhi, Rahul Gandhi and Priyanka Gandhi Vadra deciding not to be in the running for the party president's post, a non-Gandhi would be at the helm after over 24 years.
Congress' central election authority chairman Madhusudan Mistry said on Wednesday that the Congress presidential polls will be held by a secret ballot and no♒ one will get to know who voted for whom.
He had a🌌sserted that a level-playing field had been ensured for both candidates.
𒆙Mistry had also demonstrated to reporters tꦛhe ballot boxes, ballot paper and how the votes would be cast.
He had said the sealed boxes would be transported to Delhi, kept in a strong room at🐷 the AICC headquarters and opened in Delhi. The ballot papers would be mixed before counting starts.
Kharge and Tharoor not only possess co💜ntrasting𒀰 demeanour but have had an equally disparate political journey.
On the one side, there is 80-year-old Kharge, a grassroots politician a♊nd a hardcore loyalist of the Gandhi family and on t🐠he other is 66-year-old Tharoor - articulate, erudite and suave - who is known for speaking his mind and joined the Congress in 2009 after a long stint at the United Nations.
The contrast is not limited to t✱heir demeanour and thinking but also their backgrounds -- while Kharge was born in a poor family at Varavatti in Bidar district, did his schooling and BA as well as Law in Gulbarga, Tharoo📖r was born in London and has a phenomenal education background.
Tharoor, who hails from the Nair community of Kerala, has studied at premier institutions 𝓡in India and the US, including St Stephen's College in Delhi and Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy in Massachusetts.
He completed a Ph.D. in 1𝕴978 from the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy.
A leader with more than 50 years of experience in politics, Kharge, who was elected MLA for nine times in a row and has been pitched as a Dalit leader by his party colleagues, has se𝕴en a steady rise in his career graph from humble beginnings as a union leader in his home-district of Gulbarga, n꧙ow Kalaburagi.
The Congress presidential poll will take place on October 17 and the results will be out on 🔯October 19.
(With PTI inputs)