Congress presidential polls: Congress gets first non-Gandhi president after 1998 as Mallikarjun Kharge emerges victorious

The Congress got its first non-Gandhi president in over two decades as senior party leader Mallikarjun Kharge on October 19 emerged victorious with 7897 votes in the  Congress presidential polls.

On the other hand, Shashi Tharoor garnered 1072 votes out of a total of 9385 votes. Around 416 votes were invalid.

The new president will replace interim Congress chief Sonia Gandhi, who has been holding the top post ever since Rahul Gandhi stepped down after the 2019 Lok Sabha elections.

As per reports, Kharge was considered the Gandhi family's favourite candidate with a large number of senior leaders backing him, while Tharoor pitched himself as the candidate of change.

Interestingly, this was the sixth time in its nearly 137-year-old history that an electoral contest decided who would hold the top post of the party.

The counting of the votes cast on October 17 began at 10 am at the AICC headquarters as all the sealed ballot boxes from the 68 polling booths set up across the country were brought by October 18 and kept in a strong room at the party office.