Mallikarjun Kharge has been elected as the new Congress president, the Congress Central Election Authority announced.
Kharge received 7,897 votes out of the nearly 9,500 votes polled, while Shashi Tharoor garnered 1,072 votes.
Kharge will become the first non-Gandhi Congress president in over two decades. The last such occasion was in 1997, when Sitaram Kesri had emerged victorious against Sharad Pawar and Rajesh Pilot.
Shashi Tharoor, the Congress MP from Thiruvananthapuram and Kharge faced off in the election held on October 17.
Nearly 9,500 out of the 9,900 party delegates eligible to vote had cast their ballots on the polling day, Congress Central Election Authority Chairperson Madhusudan Mistry had said on Monday.
Even before the results were announced, Rahul Gandhi had declared Mr Kharge as the winner at a press conference in Andhra Pradesh.
When asked whether he would report to the new chief, Rahul Gandhi said: “The new president will decide what my role will be. Ask Kharge ji and Sonia ji.”
