Shashi
Tharoor’s camp has alleged that there were irregularities in the Congress
president election process in Uttar Pradesh. Tharoor, 66, a UN diplomat-turned-politician
is one of the contenders for the Congress president post. His chief contender
is Mallikarjun Kharge, an 80-year-old Congressman from Karnataka, widely seen
as the favourite in the election.

The Tharoor
camp said there were “disturbing facts” in the election process in Uttar Pradesh.
The camp has demanded that votes in the state be cancelled. “We did not contest
this election to accept business as usual,” team Tharoor told NDTV. The votes
from Uttar Pradesh are important because nearly 1,000 votes out of the nearly
9,500 votes cast are from India’s most populous state.

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Tharoor’s
camp made the claim of irregularities soon after the votes began being counted.

“We’ve been
in constant communication with Madhusudan Mistry’s office, informed them about
many different issues, cannot get into the specifics now,” said Salman Soz,
Shashi Tharoor’s election agent told NDTV.

Shashi Tharoor
has also written a letter to Mistry, the Congress Central Election Authority
chairman, about the irregularities. “Our campaign wants to bring to your
attention extremely serious irregularities in the conduct of the 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.”

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However,
Tharoor maintained that his complaint was not against his competitor
Mallikarjun Kharge. “We would like to underline that we have no evidence that
Mallikarjun Kharge ji was aware of how his supporters were engaging in
electoral malpractice in Uttar Pradesh,” Tharoor wrote.

“We are
certain that if he were aware, he would never allow what happened in Uttar
Pradesh. He would not allow the tainting of an election that is so important
for the Indian National Congress.”

In what was
the most damning part of the letter, it said: “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 be deemed
invalid.”