Two-faced: Congress poll panel slams Shashi Tharoor

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, October 20

The controversy involving allegations of voter fraud in the Congress president’s poll deepened on Thursday with chairman of the party’s election authority Madhusudan Mistry attacking complainant Shashi Tharoor’s team for keeping “one face before the poll body and another before the media”.

Issues were resolved

You had one face before me which showed you’re satisfied with all our answers and action and different face in media which made allegations against us — Madhusudan Mistry, Congress poll panel chief

“You had one face before me which communicated that you’re satisfied with all our answers and action and different face in the media which made allegations against us. You tried creating a mountain out of a molehill by creating an impression that the entire exercise was unfair to your candidate,” Mistry said in a rebuttal of the complaint of “extremely serious irregularities” in Uttar Pradesh Tharoor’s poll agent Salman Soz made on the eve of counting, demanding all UP votes be declared invalid.

Soz had, however, subsequently agreed to the counting of votes yesterday that ended with veteran Mallikarjun Kharge registering an emphatic win over Tharoor by polling 7,897 votes as the latter’s 1,072.

Replying to the complaint, Mistry took exception to Tharoor team’s remarks that they kept quiet in the party’s interest all along. “We satisfied you on every complaint you made to us and you agreed to all of them and expressed that you’re satisfied. Despite that you raised all those points in the media before bringing them to our notice,” said Mistry.

He also attacked Tharoor for alleging that he did not get phone numbers of the voters and that his campaign was hindered on this count. “You alleged in the media that you did not receive phone numbers for 3,000 voters despite the fact that you and Kharge both received nearly 9,400 phone numbers available with us,” Mistry’s reply said.

Mistry added it was after Tharoor’s objection that the poll body asked delegates to tick mark their preference instead of using “1” for voting. “Yet you went to the media alleging that the election authority was conspiring against you,” Mistry rued.

The BJP, meanwhile, called the exercise “a farce”. “Kharge got 88 per cent votes, just short of the 90-per cent mark, which could have given Tharoor option to file a formal complaint of malpractice. He was denied that manoeuvre too,” alleged Amit Malviya of the BJP.

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