Veteran leader Mallikarjun Kharge secured a massive win over Shashi Tharoor in the party presidential polls and has been declared the new Congress president on Wednesday.
Kharge won the party presidential polls by a whopping 7,897 votes, while 1,072 votes were cast in favour of Shashi Tharoor. The counting of votes to choose between both the senior leaders had begun at 10 am at the AICC headquarters in New Delhi.
More than 9,500 votes were cast on Monday. All sealed ballot boxes from the 68 polling booths set up across the country were kept in a “strong room” at the party office.
Mapanna Mallikarjun Kharge, a staunch Gandhi family loyalist from Karnataka, has become the Congress’ first non-Gandhi president in 24 years.
The 80-year-old leader succeeds Sonia Gandhi at the grand old party’s highest office.
