Tharoor in trouble with Congress poll chief over letter leak

Shashi Tharoor, the
UN diplomat-turned-politician who received a major drubbing in the Congress
presidential elections on Wednesday, is now in trouble with the party’s
election overseer Madhusudan Mistry. Tharoor lost the Congress presidential
polls, winning 1,072 votes (roughly 11%) of the total votes polled (nearly
9,500). But even before the polls were counted, Tharoor’s camp alleged that
there were “extremely serious irregularities” in the voting process. A letter
sent from Tharoor’s team to Mistry leaked to the media, and the Congress
election overseer is furious with the Thiruvananthapuram MP.

Madhusudan Mistry,
chairman of Congress’ Central Election Authority, responded to Tharoor’s team
on Thursday, saying: “I am sorry to say that you had one face before me which
communicated that you’re satisfied with all our answers and different face in
the media which made all these allegations against us.”

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“You tried creating
a mountain out of a mole by creating an impression that the entire exercise was
unfair to your candidate,” the letter stated further.

The letter written
by the Tharoor camp that leaked to the press stated: “Our campaign wants to
bring to your attention extremely serious irregularities in the conduct of
election in the state of Uttar Pradesh. As you will see, the facts are damning
and the election process in UP is devoid of credibility and integrity.”

“We do not see how
this election can be deemed free and fair if the tainted process of Uttar
Pradesh is allowed to stand. We therefore demand that all votes from Uttar
Pradesh can be deemed invalid,” the letter stated further.

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Uttar Pradesh is
India’s most populous state. Nearly a thousand votes of the over 9,500 polled
were from the state.  

Soon after the
election results were announced, Tharoor put out a tweet saying: “It is a great
honour & a huge responsibility to be President of @INC India & I wish @Kharge
ji all success in that task. It was a privilege to have received the support of
over a thousand colleagues, & to carry the hopes & aspirations of so
many well-wishers of Congress across India.”

“I look forward to
working with Congress colleagues to face the challenges ahead. I believe the
revival of our party has truly begun today,” Tharoor wrote in a statement
attached to the tweet.