Will give 50% tickets to youth to contest polls: Kharge

PATNA: Congress party's presidential candidate Mallikarjun Kharge on Tuesday said he will give 50 per cent tickets to youth to contest elections if he becomes the chief of the party. The election for the Congress party president is scheduled to be held on October 17.

Kharge arrived in Patna on Tuesday for his election campaign to seek support of the party members. He said that he had learnt about his candidature just 18 hours before the announcement.

"During the Congress' conference in Udaipur, the party had set the agenda to give 50 per cent seats to youth. It is also our election manifesto. If I become the national president of the party, I will implement it. We work for the people working in unorganised sectors, labourers, and farmers. I will take forward the ideology of Mahatma Gandhi in the country," the senior Congress leader from Karnataka said.

"The way BJP leaders are doing arbitrariness in the country, the democracy comes under threat. Saving the democracy of the country is also our core ideology of the party and I stick to it," he said.

Speaking on the Bharat Jodo Yatra led by party leader Rahul Gandhi, Kharge said "it is not a political rally".

"Rahul Gandhi is doing the Bharat Jodo Yatra to unite the people of the country against BJP which is doing divisive politics and creating differences in the society in the names of caste and religions. He is getting support from a large number of people," he said.

Mallikarjun Kharge is contesting against another senior leader Shashi Tharoor for the post of the party's national president.