560 to vote in Congress prez polls from state

Nagpur: From Maharashtra about 560 voters will cast their votes for the Congress presidential elections, of which 182 are from Vidarbha. The elections will be held on October 17 while the counting will be two days later.
Gandhi loyalist and MP Mallikarjun Kharge is pitted against former international diplomat and MP Shashi Tharoor in the polls, which are being held after a gap of over two decades.
The last elections for this post were held in 2000 when Sonia Gandhi was challenged by Jiten Prasada. In 1997, a three-pronged battle was witnessed between senior leaders Sitaram Kesri, Sharad Pawar and Rajesh Pilot.
Kesri pipped other two favourites by securing 6,224 votes in comparison to Pawar’s 882 and Pilot’s 354. Since 2000, no one challenged Sonia Gandhi’s presidency, until Rahul Gandhi was elected unopposed in 2017. After he stepped down following the party's poor show in 2019 Lok Sabha polls, his mother was made an interim chief of the grand old party and was continuing till date.
Following a string of defeats in the assembly polls in the last couple of years and many top leaders deserting the party, calls were made to elect a full-time president in a democratic way. After Rahul Gandhi, who is currently on the Bharat Jodo Yatra, declined the offer to lead the party, the high command has decided to go for the elections.
Explaining the procedure, party’s chief spokesperson Atul Londhe said Pradesh Congress Committee (PCC) delegates, who were elected on the block levels, can vote in president’s polls. “We have a Central Election Authority in Delhi having former minister Pallam Raju and other senior leaders, who will count the votes and declare the winner. The elections process began with digital registration of the voters for electing PCC delegates.”
Party’s media coordinator Shrinivas Bikkad told TOI that besides 560 PCC delegates, five ex-officio MPCC members, who completed the full term, and four MLAs and three MLCs would also cast vote on October 17. “In Maharashtra, the poll procedure would be held at PCC’s Tilak Bhavan and all 560 delegates would have to arrive at Mumbai for the voting,” he said.