Congress presidential polls: Team Shashi Tharoor alleges irregularities

Congress leader Shashi Tharoor

As the counting for Congress’ top post at AICC headquarters in New Delhi is underway, the Shashi Tharoor-led camp has alleged irregularities in Uttar Pradesh.

On October 19, Congress leader Salman Soz, on behalf of Lok Sabha MP, Shashi Tharoor, wrote a letter to Central Election Authority chairman Madhusudan Mistry alleging “extremely serious irregularities” in the conduct of the election process in Uttar Pradesh.

In his letter Soz wrote, “ We suspect voter fraud in this election. There were delegates who were not present in the Lucknow area on the day of voting and their votes were cast.”

Sources say, after the complaint the secret ballot boxes that were brought from Uttar Pradesh have been kept aside.

He has also mentioned that Shashi Tharoor’s team doesn’t see that these elections are free and fair if the “tainted” process of Uttar Pradesh is allowed to stand.

Soz has demanded that all votes from Uttar Pradesh be deemed invalid.

The counting of votes commenced at 11am at AICC headquarters in New Delhi. Secret ballot boxes have been brought from states units.

"In 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," Soz posted on Twitter today.