Congress presidential candidate Shahsi Tharoor on Saturday claimed that youngsters and people in lower levels of the party are with him, while the senior leaders are backing his rival Mallikarjun Kharge. The Thiruvananthapuram MP also asserted that no Congress president can function keeping a distance from the Gandhi family as their DNA runs through the party's blood.
"I am getting support from the young voters. I am getting good feedback from the lower levels. The seniors are going with Kharge. We have been talking about change and older people resist it," Tharoor said in Guwahati.
Tharoor admitted that many party office-bearers are violating the election authority's guidelines and campaigning for Kharge. He, however, said the election would be held through secret ballots and the votes of senior leaders and lower rank members would carry equal weightage.
If he is elected, Tharoor said, decentralisation of power and bringing about change by introducing younger blood in the leadership will be at the core of his term.
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Earlier, while addressing the media in Bhopal, the MP took a veiled attack on Rajasthan Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot who had put up a video on Twitter in support of Kharge.
"There are clear instructions that no party office-bearer, Chief Minister or Pradesh Congress Committee chief should support or campaign for any candidate," Tharoor said.
Election to the party president post will be held on October 17 and the results will be announced on October 19. Though the party high command has maintained that there is no “official candidate” in the fray, Kharge is being seen as a favourite for the post because of his perceived proximity to the Gandhi family.
Tharoor has been maintaining that the Gandh family remains neutral in the poll, though he alleged that he has been facing differential treatment from the party leaders as against Kharge.
He rued that several Pradesh Congress Committee chiefs and senior leaders were not available for a meeting with him during his visits to their respective states, but they warmed up to Kharge when he visited them seeking support.
