Congress presidential poll candidate Shashi Tharoor on Wednesday congratulated Mallikarguna Kharge on becoming AICC chief. Kharge, who is known to be close to Gandhis, won the Congress presidential elections with 7897 votes, Shashi Tharoor got about 1000 votes; 416 votes were rejected.
The Thiruvanantharuram MP who had written to the party's chief election authority, just a few hours before the result, flagging "extremely serious irregularities" in the conduct of the election in Uttar Pradesh and demanded that all votes from the state be deemed invalid, issued a letter to Kharge and said, "I believe the revival of our party has truly begun today."
"Called on our new President-elect Mallikarjun Kharge to congratulate him & offer him my full co-operation. Congress has been strengthened by our contest," Tharoor tweeted along with pictures of his meeting with Kharge. In one of the pictures, he held Kharge's arm aloft with Congress MP Karti Chidambaram also in the photograph.
Earlier in the day, Shashi Tharoor's team has written to the party's chief election authority, flagging "extremely serious irregularities" in the conduct of the election in Uttar Pradesh and demanded that all votes from the state be deemed invalid, sources said.
Tharoor's campaign team has also raised "serious issues" in the conduct of the election in Punjab and Telangana.
In his letter to Central Election Authority chairman Madhusudan Mistry, Tharoor's chief election agent Salman Soz has said the facts are "damning" and the election process in Uttar Pradesh is "devoid of credibility and integrity", they said.
