Congress: Voting held in crunch leadership election for India’s ailing grand old party

Vote comes as parties prepare to clash at the next general election in 2024

Members of India’s opposition Congress party on Monday voted to elect their first president outside the Nehru-Gandhi family in nearly 25 years.

Interim president Sonia Gandhi was one of the 9,000 party delegates entitled to vote to select their new leader. The members of the Gandhi family have refused to stand in the party election.

“I have been waiting for this for a long time,” said Ms Gandhi, who led the party for nearly two decades until 2017 and is the widow of former prime minister Rajiv Gandhi.

The result of the election will be declared on Wednesday.

The election was closely fought between veteran Gandhi family loyalist Mallikarjun Kharge and dissenter Shashi Tharoor.

Mr Kharge, 80, a politician from the southern state of Karnataka, is seen as a frontrunner and touted to be the “official candidate” after being open supported by fellow senior partymen.

Mr Tharoor – a former UN diplomat and lawmaker from the southern state of Kerala – was one of the first people to speak against the concentration of power with the Gandhi family.

“I believe the revival of Congress has begun,” the 66-year-old former diplomat said after casting his ballot.

“I am confident. The fate of the Congress party is in the hands of party workers. The odds have been stacked against us as the party leaders and establishment were overwhelmingly with the other candidate.”

Former prime minister Manmohan Singh, 90, was also present to cast his vote in Delhi.

Former Indian prime minister Manmohan Singh casts his vote for congress party president election (AP)

The election is seen as an effort to revive the grand old party's electoral fortunes just two years ahead of the 2024 general polls. Formed 137 years ago during India’s struggle for independence from British colonial rule, the party has been in India for most of the country’s independent years.

However, the Congress suffered a humiliating defeat at the hands of prime minister Narendra Modi’s Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in the past two consecutive general elections, prompting senior leaders to leave the party over a “leadership crisis”.

A group of dissenters had called for a fresh election after Rahul Gandhi, the son of interim president Ms Gandhi, stepped down as president after the Congress faced a drubbing in the national elections in 2019.