Mallikarjun Kharge Vs Shashi Tharoor: Congress to get its first non-Gandhi president in 24 years today, counting to begin at 10 AM

New Delhi: The Congress party is set to get a new president on Wednesday as the counting for the recently concluded presidential contest held between veteran Mallikarjun Kharge and Thiruvananthapuram MP Shashi Tharoor will begin at 10 am on Wednesday and the results are expected to be announced around 3PM to 4 PM. It will be for the first time in 24 years that the Congress party will get a party chief who does not belong to the Nehru-Gandhi family. 

The new president will take place of Sonia Gandhi who had been serving as interim president after Rahul Gandhi stepped down from the post following the party`s debacle in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections. 

The result is likely to be declared between 3 pm to 4 pm. The ballot boxes from the state headquarters have reached the counting place in the Congress office. Mallikarjun Kharge is seen as the favourite to win the contest. Five agents from each side will oversee the counting while two agents from both sides will be kept in reserve, sources said.

The Chairman of the Central Election Authority will announce the result after counting. More than 9,500 delegates cast their votes in the presidential election which took place at the culmination of the party`s organisational polls.

Sources said seven-eight tables will be set up for counting of votes and each table will have two persons. Congress sources said the elected president will take charge after Diwali in the presence of senior leaders in a programme at the Congress headquarters. It has not been decided whether the certificate will be given to the winner on Wednesday or later. Rajasthan Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot, who was earlier the frontrunner for the post, will also be coming to Delhi today. Meanwhile, Rahul Gandhi will continue with his ongoing Bharat Jodo Yatra.

This was only the sixth time in Congress' 137-year-old history that elections were held for the party chief's post. On the previous occasion, in 1998, Sonia Gandhi defeated Jitendra Prasada, and held the post till December 2017, when she passed the baton to her son, Rahul Gandhi. However, in 2019, Rahul Gandhi resigned after the party lost against arch-rival Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in that year's Lok Sabha polls, its second successive defeat to the BJP in general elections.

Rahul Gandhi's move led to Sonia Gandhi's return as the interim Congress president.