Day after Team Tharoor’s internal mail to Madhusudhan Mistry over election fraud in Uttar Pradesh went viral, the Congress election chief on Thursday lambasted party presidential candidate Shashi Tharoor over the leak, saying that he had presented one face before the party, and another face before the media, reported The Indian Express.
In his five-point statement to Tharoor’s polling agent Salman Soz, Mistry countered each and every point raised by Soz in the letter that went viral on the counting day. “I am sorry to say that you had one face before me which communicated that you’re satisfied with all our answers & different face in the media which made all these allegations against us,” Mistry said in reply to Tharoor’s election agent, as reported by news agency ANI.
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“We accommodated your request and despite that you went to the media alleging Central Election Authority was conspiring against you,” Mistry further stated in his reply, as reported by ANI.
Hours before the results were declared, Team Tharoor had demanded that “all votes from UP be deemed invalid” citing complaints of alleged voting malpractice. Stating that the polling agents of Tharoor were “threatened” in UP, 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. There were complaints from people about not being allowed to cast their votes since others had already cast their votes.”
Moments after Soz’s letter started doing the rounds, Tharoor took to Twitter and wrote, “It was unfortunate that a strictly internal letter to the CEA was leaked to the media.”
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After Tharoor’s defeat to Mallikarjun Kharge, the Congress presidential candidate, addressing the press on the election malpractices row, said, “It was not the first letter of violation that was sent, it was the last letter. I am not aware if any actions were taken…We never doubted the good faith of the party leadership or the election authority wanting to have a free and fair election. By and large, the leadership backed Mr Kharge…”