Tharoor vs Gandhi loyalist Kharge for Congress chief post: Here’s a head-to-head comparison
India Today
Here’s a look at the head-to-head comparison of Mallikarjun Kharge and Shashi Tharoor as the battle for the Congress chief post heats up.
The Congress presidential election is going to be a head-to-head contest between MP Shashi Tharoor and senior leader Mallikarjun Kharge with a majority of senior leaders backing Kharge, who is also seen as the ''official candidate'" of the party.
Tharoor had announced his decision to contest the polls much earlier than Kharge, who was a late-entrant into the poll fray. Popularly known as "Solillada Saradara" (a leader without defeat) in his home-state of Karnataka, Mapanna Mallikarjun Kharge is a loyalist of the Gandhi family.
If elected, he will be the second AICC president from Karnataka after S Nijalingappa, and also a Dalit leader to hold the post after Jagjivan Ram.
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But by filing his nomination as Congress president, Shashi Tharoor has shown he is not acting on the instructions of an influential third party. However, Tharoor claimed that Mallikarjun Kharge has the backing of a whole battery of senior leaders, while he himself had party workers by his side, which was also evident when the Thiruvananthapuram MP went to submit his nomination papers.
"I go by what the party leadership told me. They have said there is no official candidate. But if you look at the visuals of the nomination filing, it already tells a story. Mr Kharge went with a whole battery of senior leaders, while I went with ordinary Congress workers. Those who want continuation of the status quo will vote for Mr Kharge. Those who want change will vote for me," Tharoor said on nomination filing day.
With that being said, here’s a head-to-head comparison of the two senior Congress leaders:
