After a week, Shashi Tharoor and Mallikarjun Kharge are going to face each other in the Congress presidential election. Tharoor claimed that the allegation that Kharge was trying to influence the voters by calling him a candidate of the Gandhi camp was true to some extent. But he believes, even though he is an ‘underdog’, he has the power to beat his opponents even from behind.
After 22 years, Congress is going to the polls to choose a person from outside the Gandhi family as its party president. Of the two candidates, Mallikarjun Kharge is virtually the undeclared candidate of the Gandhi family. On the other hand, Shashi entered the fight as the representative of the anti-Gandhi family camp in the party. At a press conference in Mumbai yesterday, he claimed, “An attempt is being made to influence the voters by projecting Kharge as a candidate of the Gandhi family. Some leaders told me they were being pressured to vote for Kharge.”
Tharoor’s stance
However, Shashi does not think that Sonia-Rahul Gandhi has any role in it. He said, “Gandhi family has already announced that they are neutral. They have no bias toward any candidate. Senior leader Madhusudan Mistry, who is in charge of the election, has also announced that no official candidate has been nominated by the party. He has said this not once, but thrice.”
Shashi is optimistic about winning even though he is behind in the race compared to Kharge. Asserting that he will act as a catalyst behind the change in Congress’s fortunes in the coming days, the Lok Sabha MP said, “Congress has run the country successfully in the past. It has won the trust of people and various parties. We have to get down to regaining that vote bank. We have to present ourselves in such a way that people regain confidence in Congress.”
However, Shashi also made it clear that his main goal is to strengthen the party, keeping in mind the 2024 Lok Sabha elections, beyond winning and losing in the presidential election. He said, “The people of the country are unhappy with the BJP. The economy is in shambles, inflation is rising, and unemployment is high. In this situation, the country is looking for a strong alternative. We have to become that strong alternative. And making the party that strong alternative will be one of my goals. The party got only 19 percent of the votes in the last two elections. Our aim should be to reach out to the remaining eighty percent and convey the message of becoming a strong alternative. Only then will it be possible to keep the BJP at bay.”
Bhagwat once again called for the abolition of caste discrimination
Sarsanghchalak Mohan Bhagwat once again called for the abolition of the caste system to bring the Dalit society under the big umbrella of Hinduism. At the same time, the Sangh chief also urged the backward classes of the society to join the Sangh family in the coming days.