On its way to accepting defeat in the Congress presidential elections, held after more than two decades, Shashi Tharoor’s team alleged serious irregularities in the conduct of the election – especially in the key state of Uttar Pradesh.
A senior party leader, Tharoor, lost the election against party veteran Mallikarjun Kharge, considered to have the blessings of the Gandhi family. Interestingly, the Gandhi family had decided not to contest the elections.
Reacting to the allegations, former Congress president Rahul Gandhi put his faith in Madhusudan Mistry, who is the chairman of the Congress’ Central Election Authority (CEA).
In a vote of confidence for the veteran party leader, Rahul Gandhi, who is leading the party’s Bharat Jodo Yatra, compared Mistry to the late TN Seshan, a stickler for rules and a no-nonsense individual.
“Mistryji is a TN Seshan-like person, who is absolutely straightforward and solid. Whatever issues are the issues, they will be addressed to the party’s election body and the panel will take a decision if there are irregularities or not,” Rahul Gandhi, who is leading Congress’ Bharat Jodo Yatra, said during the Andhra Pradesh leg of the Yatra in Adoni.
Rahul Gandhi was responding to a question about Team Tharoor member Salman Soz’s letter to Mistry over the alleged irregularities in the polls.
Rahul Gandhi, who is a Lok Sabha MP from Kerala’s Wayanad, said that the Congress has an “institutional framework” to address such issues. “We are very, very capable of doing this (addressing the issue). We are the only party that has such a framework,” the Gandhi scion added.
Rahul Gandhi also highlighted the fact that the Grand Old Party is the only party where elections take place for electing the party chief. “We are the only political party in the country that holds elections. We are also the only political party that has an election commission inside it,” he said.
Rahul Gandhi also said that such an election does not happen in Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and other regional parties. “What’s very interesting to me is a question that I keep asking myself but I don’t get an answer to,” he said.
“Everybody asks the question about the Congress party. And I am proud that the Congress party has an open and transparent election. But why is nobody interested in other parties? Why is it that no one asks why there is no election in the BJP or other regional parties? Nobody is interested in that,” he questioned.
Meanwhile, talking about Andhra Pradesh, Rahul Gandhi said, “As far as the bifurcation (of the state) goes, the main thing from my perspective, and from the Congress perspective, is that when this bifurcation took place, certain commitments were made to the people of Andhra Pradesh.”
“We believe that those are fundamental commitments and those commitments are made by the Union of India and we think those commitments should be fulfilled. That is our single most important observation,” he said. “We got a tremendous response from the people of Andhra Pradesh. And this is the starting point to build the party in Andhra Pradesh,” he added.