NEW DELHI, Oct 17, 2022 (BSS) - Voting to elect the new president of the Indian National Congress concluded here this evening as 9,500 out of total 9,900 electors cast their votes from 10 am to 4pm today.

The overall voter turnout was about 96 percent and it was nearly 100 percent in some small states, The Congress's central election committee Chairman Madhusudan Mistry told media after voting ended.

The results are expected to be declared on Wednesday (October 19).

The voting took place at the AICC headquarters as well as at more than 65 polling places throughout the nation.

Party chief Sonia Gandhi and Congress general secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra voted at the AICC headquarters in Delhi, Rahul Gandhi cast his vote at the 'Bharat Jodo Yatra' campsite in Karnataka's Sanganakallu in Ballari along with around 40 other 'Bharat Yatris' who are PCC delegates.

Senior party leaders Mallikarjun HYPERLINK "https://indianexpress.com/article/political-pulse/mallikarjun-kharge-congress-presidential-elections-newsmaker-8182532/"Kharge and Shashi Tharoor are contesting against each other for the presidential post as Sonia Gandhi, Rahul Gandhi and Priyanka Gandhi Vadra opted out from the party's highest post.

Tharoor cast his vote at the Kerala Congress headquarters at Thiruvananthapuram, while Kharge did so at the Karnataka Congress office in Bengaluru.

It would be the sixth time in the party's nearly 137-year-old history that an electoral contest would decide who would take up the mantle of the party's president.

Since Sonia Gandhi, Rahul Gandhi and Priyanka Gandhi Vadra are not in the running for the party president's post, a non-Gandhi would be at the helm after over 24 years after the election.

Founded in 1885, it was the first modern nationalist movement to emerge in the British Empire in Asia and Africa. From the late 19th century, and especially after 1920, under the leadership of Mahatma Gandhi, the Congress became the principal leader of the Indian independence movement.