‘One face before us, another face before media’: Mistry hits out at Tharoor over ‘irregularities’ claim
Congress central election authority chief Madhusudan Mistry hit out at Shashi Tharoor’s allegations of “irregularities in conduct” of the party’s presidential poll in Uttar Pradesh.
“We accommodated your request and despite that, you went to the media alleging Central Election Authority was conspiring against you,” he said.
Mistry said that while Tharoor told him that he was satisfied with the authority’s answers to his questions on irregularities, he made different allegations while speaking to the media. “I am sorry to say that you had one face before me which communicated that you are satisfied with all our answers and different face in the media which made all these allegations against us,” Mistry said.
Tharoor’s campaign team, in a letter, alleged irregularities and malpractices in Uttar Pradesh in the conduct of the election for Congress president. Tharoor’s chief election agent Salman Anees Soz had demanded that votes from the state be deemed invalid.
Mistry said there was “no basis” in what is written in the letter and argued that making the letter public was not right.
In a separate letter to Mistry, Tharoor’s team also raised “serious issues” in the conduct of the election in Punjab and Telangana. They alleged “unethical process” was followed in distributing delegate cards in Punjab and also flagged the presence of PCC chief Amrinder Singh Raja Warring inside the polling booth repeatedly and “allowing bogus voting”.
Mistry refuted the charge, stating that no unauthorised person had entered the polling booth.
Mallikarjun Kharge won the election, bagging 7,897 votes (84.14%) as against Shashi Tharoor polling 1,072 votes (11.42%). Kharge became the first non-Gandhi to occupy the Congress presidency in two-and-a-half decades.
