The highly contested election for the position of Congress president, featuring frontrunners Mallikarjun Kharge and Shashi Tharoor, witnessed a substantial voter turnout on Monday, with nearly 96 percent of Pradesh Congress Committee delegates participating, as reported by the party. Setting the stage for Wednesday’s counting, a visibly pleased Sonia Gandhi, the outgoing president, expressed her anticipation, saying, “I have been waiting for this day for a long time.” If successful, this result will mark the first instance in over two decades where the party will have a non-Gandhi leader.

Early voters included an ailing former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, AICC general secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra, and former Congress president Rahul Gandhi, who voted at the Bharat Jodo Yatra campsite in Sanganakallu, Karnataka. Of the 9,915 PCC delegates, 9,497 cast their votes across state capitals, including 87 at the AICC headquarters and 50 at the Yatra campsite, according to Madhusudan Mistry, heading the party’s Central Election Authority (CEA).

Kharge and Tharoor cast their votes in Bengaluru and Thiruvananthapuram, respectively. Minutes before voting commenced, Tharoor conveyed his best wishes to Kharge.

Mistry disclosed, for the first time, the number of eligible PCC delegates and noted that the turnout figures were provisional. He confirmed that ballot boxes would be brought to Delhi, where the papers would be mixed before counting to ensure secrecy.

While the Kharge camp expressed confidence in victory, the Tharoor campaign highlighted a “very strong groundswell of support” and observed a “greater than expected” level of excitement in the final campaign leg.

Mistry asserted that the elections were conducted openly and peacefully, emphasizing the Congress party’s commitment to internal democracy. He downplayed concerns from the Tharoor camp about a lack of a level playing field, stating that certain complaints related to voter behavior could not be controlled by the CEA.

As polling began at 10 am, the first voter at the AICC headquarters was former Union minister P Chidambaram, followed by Jairam Ramesh. Chief Ministers Ashok Gehlot and Bhupesh Baghel cast their votes at party headquarters in Jaipur and the PCC office in Raipur, respectively.

This election marks the first time in 22 years that the Congress party is witnessing a contest for the post of president. The last non-Gandhi Congress president was Sitaram Kesri, succeeded by Sonia Gandhi in March 1998. The last contested election occurred in 2000 between Jitendra Prasada and Sonia Gandhi. In 2017, Sonia handed over the presidency to Rahul Gandhi, who later stepped down following the party’s defeat in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections.