96% voter turnout in Congress president polls

New Delhi: The grand old party, Congress, is all set to have a non-Gandhi president in more than 24 years. Senior leaders of the party Mallikarjun Kharge and Shashi Tharoor are vying each other for the post of AICC chief, for which elections were held on Monday. Around 9,500 Congress party delegates voted to elect a new party president. Voting began shortly after 10 am as scheduled and ended soon after 4 pm.

Congress Central Election Authority chief Madhusudan Mistry told the media that the election saw a 96% turnout. "No untoward incident occurred...3 ballot boxes have been received- 87 people voted at AICC, Delhi," Mistry has said. Most Congress chiefs have been elected unopposed.

This is only the 6th time in the party's 137-year history, and the first time since 2000, that an election will decide the winner of a party presidential contest. Sonia and Priyanka Gandhi cast their votes at the AICC headquarters in New Delhi, as did former PM Manmohan Singh.

Contestants Shashi Tharoor voted at the Kerala PCC office in Thiruvananthapuram, while Mallikarjun Kharge voted in Bengaluru.

Talking to a TV channel, Kharge said he would not speculate on the likely winner as that would "show his ego". "I believe the revival of Congress has begun. Today I spoke to Kharge and said whatever has happened, we remain colleagues and friends," Tharoor said. Ballot boxes will reach Delhi on October 18, counting of votes is on October 19. Sealed ballot boxes will be transported to Delhi and kept in a strong room at the AICC headquarters. The ballot papers will be mixed before counting starts so that no one will know how many votes the candidate got from a particular state.