New Delhi: Congress Central Election Authority chairman Madhusudan Mistry has announced that the final contest for the post of Congress president will be between Mallikarjun Kharge and Shashi Tharoor. Former Jharkhand minister K N Tripathi’s nomination for the Congress presidential poll was rejected on Saturday by Mistry. The three had filed nominations on Friday, the last day of the process. Madhusudan Mistry, while addressing a press conference at the Congress headquarters in Delhi, said, “a total of 20 forms were received during the nomination process and four of them were rejected”.
While Kharge submitted 14 forms, Tharoor submitted five and Tripathi one. Mistry said Tripathi’s form was rejected as the signature of one of his proposers did not match and another proposer’s signature was repeated.
Earlier, Mallikarjun Kharge submitted his resignation to Sonia Gandhi from the post of Leader of Opposition in Rajya Sabha as per the Udaipur resolution of One Leader One Post.
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Kharge has received support from nearly 30 Congress leaders for the party`s presidential polls. These names include Deepender Hooda, Salman Khurshid, Ashok Gehlot, Digvijaya Singh, Manish Tewari, Prithviraj Chavan, and others.
Nominations for the post of Congress president closed at 3 pm on Friday and results will be declared on October 19. With the Gandhis not running for the top post this time around, the grand old party is all set to get a non-Gandhi president after over 25 years.
(With agency inputs)