Tharoor camp flagged 'irregularities' in counting in 3 states

As the counting of votes in the Congress presidential poll progressed on Wednesday, candidate Shashi Tharoor's team wrote to the party's chief election authority, flagging 'extremely serious irregularities' in the conduct of the election in Uttar Pradesh and demanded that all votes from the state be deemed invalid, sources said.

Tharoor's campaign team also raised 'serious issues' in the conduct of the election in Punjab and Telangana.

Mallikarjun Kharge was elected the Congress president after defeating Tharoor, who got 1,072 of over 9,500 votes.

In his letter to Central Election Authority chairman Madhusudan Mistry, Tharoor's chief election agent Salman Soz has said the facts are 'damning' and the election process in Uttar Pradesh is 'devoid of credibility and integrity', they said.

However, he later tweeted, 'In the light of complaints from our UP team yesterday, we wrote to @INCIndia's CEA immediately, a standard practice. Subsequent discussions with the CEA have assured us of a fair inquiry. We have agreed for the counting to continue and our team looks forward to the results.'

Earlier, Soz conveyed to Mistry that what has been witnessed in Uttar Pradesh is an open challenge to the authority of 'your office' as well as contempt for the orders of the Congress president and the Congress Working Committee to hold free and fair elections.

'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. We are certain that if he was aware, he would never allow what happened in Uttar Pradesh,' Soz said in his letter, according to sources.

'He (Kharge) would not allow the tainting of an election that is so important for the Indian National Congress,' Soz was quoted as saying in the letter.

The 'irregularities' in Uttar Pradesh flagged by Tharoor's team include use of unofficial seals for ballot boxes, presence of unofficial persons in polling booths, voting malpractice, no polling summary sheet, presence of All India Congress Committee (AICC) secretaries in-Charge of Uttar Pradesh.

'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,' the letter dated October 18 said, according to the sources.

Tharoor's team said it suspects 'voter fraud' in this election, alleging that there were delegates who were not present in the Lucknow area on the day of voting and their votes were cast.

There were complaints from people about not being allowed to cast their votes since others had already cast their votes, the letter said.

"When our agents complained about voter malpractice, supporters of the other side would come inside the polling booth and create a ruckus and start threatening our polling agents," Soz said, according to sources.

In a separate letter to Mistry, Tharoor's team also raised serious issues in the conduct of the election in Punjab and Telangana.