After PCC chiefs back Mallikarjun Kharge, Shashi Tharoor lobs CEA guidelines at Madusudan Mistry

The Central Election Authority's guidelines that office bearers should not campaign for either candidates contesting the Congress presidential election has come under the scanner after Mallikarjun Kharge received endorsements from PCC chiefs of Kerala and Telangana on the same day the directions were issued.

Second contestant Shashi Tharoor on Tuesday expressed displeasure over violation of the guidelines and said it was for CEA to deal with the development. Responding to some senior Telangana Congress leaders urging him to withdraw, Tharoor said Rahul Gandhi had told him that some persons had asked him (Gandhi) to request Tharoor to withdraw but Gandhi asked him to go ahead and contest.

"Yes, I am watching some top leaders showing partiality. While it is not that what they say will be followed by those who vote, it is undemocratic. He (PCC chief) cannot give a direction, which is clear in the circular issued by the party debarring party office-bearers from campaigning for candidates...But please don't ask me about it. If the election authority (CEA) wants to do something about it, it is up to it. Mr Mistry is a senior leader, he knows the laws," Tharoor told journalists in Thiruvananthapuram when asked about KPCC chief K Sudhakaran openly backing Kharge.


"Tharoor also made it a point to recall that the Gandhi-Vadra trio had assured him "they are neutral" and "there is no official candidate" and CEA Madusudan Mistry had assured him it would be a secret ballot. Tharoor said he was banking on younger PCC delegates and exhorted them to participate in the secret voting, in which "nobody would know which PCC delegate voted for who or which PCC went which way."

Mistry says no complaint: When ET asked Mistry whether CEA had taken note of Kerala and Telangana PCC chiefs backing Kharge, Mistry said, "we have not received any complaints from the candidates. We don't go by media reports." When asked why the CEA, which issued guidelines to bar AICC office-bearers and PCC/CLP leaders from campaigning for candidates, did not issue any such guideline earlier against the same party leaders' signing nomination papers for the presidential candidates, Mistry said, "it is an internal matter of the Congress party" and "not for the media to create any unnecessary controversy." In what was widely reported as a show of Congress establishment's backing for Kharge, many CWC members, AICC general secretaries and PCC/CLP leaders had signed papers for Kharge.