New Delhi: Congress leader Shashi Tharoor, who lost the just-concluded poll held to elect the party president, on Thursday said that he was not upset with the result as he knew the establishment of the party would rally behind his opponent Mallikarjun Kharge.
“I’m not upset, it was clear from beginning that establishment of the party will rally behind my opponent (M Kharge),” news agency ANI quoted Tharoor as saying.
He further said that he spoke to Sonia Gandhi and she said, it was not surprising that “people would back one of their own”.
I’m not upset, it was clear from beginning that establishment of the party will rally behind my opponent (M Kharge). I spoke to Sonia Gandhi &she said “Look it’s not surprising that most of the party members, the way they voted on their own”: Shashi Tharoor on Congress pres polls pic.twitter.com/T2fhn36nQw
— ANI (@ANI) October 20, 2022
Tharoor, while speaking at the launch of Congress veteran and former Union minister Mohsina Kidwai’s biography, said that he was not disappointed with the result as the election had galvanised the party workers.
“I am not disappointed because I think it was very clear from the earliest moments of the campaign that the establishment, minus the rare case of a Mohsina Kidwai or a Saifuddin Soz or a few other fellow MPs, was going to rally behind him (Kharge) and that inevitably happened and I have no complaints about that,” news agency PTI quoted the Thiruvananthapuram MP as saying.
“I have now made new relationships with our party workers all over the country that I would never have had a chance without this election,” Tharoor added.
It is to be noted that Kharge on Wednesday was elected as the Congress president, becoming the first non-Gandhi to hold the party’s top post after two decades.
According to Congress Central Election Authority chairman Madhusudan Mistry, a total of 9,385 votes were cast, out of which Mallikarjun Kharge received 7,897 votes and Shashi Tharoor received 1,072, while 416 votes were invalid.
Kharge becomes the second Dalit president of the Congress after Jagjivan Ram, who became the chief after the party’s split in 1969.