Congress President Elections 2022 LIVE Updates, Shashi Tharoor, Mallikarjun Kharge: Mallikarjun Kharge files nomination; Tharoor says, ‘If you want change, come with me’.
Indian National Congress (INC) president Elections 2022 LIVE Updates: Congress MP Shashi Tharoor will start his campaign for the party president’s election by visiting the Deekshabhoomi monument in Nagpur on Saturday, news agency PTI reported. Tharoor will pay his tributes at Deekshabhoomi, where Dr B R Ambedkar converted to Buddhism along with his followers in 1956, on Saturday, said Maharashtra Congress leader Ashish Deshmukh. Deshmukh has organised the Thiruvananthapuram MP’s visit here.
Senior Congress leader Mallikarjun Kharge, who filed his nomination for the post of party president on Friday, said he was fighting for a big change in the party. He also appealed to all delegates to vote for him. BJP national spokesperson Shehzad Poonawalla, meanwhile, called Mallikarjun Kharge a “proxy” for the Gandhi family, in a tweet. “After (Rajasthan Chief Minister Ashok) Gehlot lost favour with Parivar (Gandhis), now 80-year-old Mallikarjun Kharge ji becomes the chosen remote controlled ‘proxy’ candidate, who is projected as an ‘official candidate’, contrast his nomination with Tharoor’s lacklustre one. Isn’t it clear the match is fixed for Kharge,” Poonawalla said.
Having filed nomination papers for the post of Congress president, Lok Sabha MP Shashi Tharoor Friday framed the contest between him and party veteran Mallikarjun Kharge as a choice between “change” represented by him and continuation of status quo and business and usual by Kharge. While calling Kharge the Bhishma Pitamah of Congress, he said the veteran is seen as the candidate of continuity. A bevy of top AICC leaders led by Rajasthan Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot, A K Antony, Bhupinder Singh Hooda, Ambika Soni, Digvijaya Singh, several CWC members and AICC office bearers, including Ajay Maken and Tariq Anwar, signed as proposers on the three sets of nomination papers filed by Kharge, sending a clear signal that he is the unofficial establishment candidate.
(Via: Indian Express)