With no support from the high command, Shashi Tharoor is sensitizing the Congress party president poll with his challenge to his rival Mallikarjun Kharge.

‘‘I am open to public debate with Kharge’’, says Tharoor with his backing from his proposers. It is being considered as the reply by Shashi Tharoor after Mallikarjun Kharge’s remark in which he said “Tharoor wants a fight.”

Supporting the open challenge of Tharoor to Kharge, party member Salman Anees Soz opines that this would be a helpful debate for the party which will help in “getting a sense of the vision and plans of the two contesting leaders”.

The challenge came to the fore by Shashi Tharoor while he was addressing a press gathering in the capital lately.

On Sunday, the Lok Sabha MP Shashi Tharoor stated that contesting for the AICC president’s post, he welcomes the idea of a public debate with Congress veteran Mallikarjun Kharge

For the Congress’s chief post, now the contest with the two veteran party leaders Kharge and Tharoor has been finalized following the rejection of the ex-minister from Jharkhand, KN Tripathi on Saturday.

Seen as the Gandhis’ choice, Mallikarjun Kharge says he had told Shashi Tharoor that having a consensus candidate will always be better than the contest.

As an update in this verbal faceoff, Tharoor wrote in his tweet this morning that he agrees with what Mr Kharge says, that all in the Congress must take on the BJP and not each other.

Giving an intellectual slogan to strengthen his position as the party chief, Tharoor writes – #ThinkTomorrowThinkTharoor !

Here are the exact words Shashi Tharoor chose while tweeting : “Let me make clear that I agree with @kharge ji that all of us in @incIndia wish to take on theBJP rather than each other. There is no ideological difference between us. The choice for our voting colleagues Oct17 is only on how to do it most effectively. ”