Congress president poll: Kharge takes potshots at Shashi Tharoor, says 'only he wanted to contest'

 Congress president poll: Kharge takes potshots at Shashi Tharoor, says 'only he wanted to contest'

Congress president poll: Even when Shashi Tharoor, one of the nominee for Congress president post, have maintained that the election is a 'friendly contest', his opponent Mallikarjun Kharge has made it clear that it is a poll and has started to take potshots at the Congress MP.

Kharge, who launched his Congress presidential poll campaign with a press conference at his residence, said that he told fellow contender Shashi Tharoor that it would be better to have a consensus candidate, but the Lok Sabha MP insisted on a contest for the "sake of democracy". Adding that it was clear that he was the "official candidate" backed by the Gandhis.

Kharge said if he becomes the party chief, he will consult the Gandhi family and other senior leaders and implement the good things suggested by them. The 80-year-old Kharge said there is no G-23 camp now and all those leaders want to fight unitedly against the RSS-BJP and therefore are supporting him.

Several dissident leaders such as Bhupinder Hooda, Anand Sharma, Manish Tewari and Prithviraj Chavan of the group of 23, which had written to party chief Sonia Gandhi in 2020 for large scale organisational reform, have put their weight behind Kharge by becoming his proposers instead of backing Tharoor who was a prominent member of the grouping.

Kharge elaborated on his political journey of struggles and successes, and asserted that working for a party is not a part-time job but a full-time work.

"I have been working full-time. If I sat in Parliament then I would get up only in the evening at the time of shut down. It is my habit that whatever I take up, I work sincerely," he said.

Asked about Tharoor's remarks that Kharge is a candidate of continuity and status quo, the Rajya Sabha MP said, "He (Tharoor) may have his views. The status quo and reforms he talks of will be decided by the 9,300-odd delegates, after that a committee will be formed (Congress Working Committee). The committee as a whole will decide all policy matters that will be formulated by consensus and we will implement that. It will not be done by one person. For me the key word is 'Hum (We)' instead of 'main (Me). We will decide together and wherever there are shortcomings, we will take action," he said.