Mallikarjun Kharge, the first Congress chief elected outside the Nehru-Gandhi family in 24 years, faces a difficult task as the party faces several electoral and organisational challenges.
A man of vast organisational and administrative experience, Kharge entered the electoral fray for the party’s top post after Rajasthan Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot opted against contesting. Kharge, 80, was seen as the “establishment’s candidate” against Shashi Tharoor and polled 7,897 votes against the 1072 received by his rival.
A leader who has risen from the grassroots, Kharge belongs to the Dalit community and will be the second leader from Karnataka to hold the top party post after S Nijalingappa became the Congress president in 1968.
In over five decades of experience in active politics, Kharge has been a union minister, a Congress leader in Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha and has held several portfolios in Karnataka, where he was MLA nine times.
A combative, articulate, and accessible politician who is comfortable both in Hindi and English, Kharge has been a strong critic of the BJP-led government.
He faces major challenges in working out strategies in terms of Congress revival in the Hindi heartland states of Uttar Pradesh and Bihar, as well as in Andhra Pradesh and Odisha. The Congress has seen an erosion in its base in some other states, including in the northeast. AAP is also seeking to emerge as a challenger in some states.
While Kharge’s immediate challenges are the assembly polls in Himachal Pradesh and Gujarat, which will go to the polls later this year, several other states, including his home state of Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, and Rajasthan, will go to the polls next year before the crucial battle in the 2024 general election.
Many senior party leaders have left Congress in recent months and years, and the Congress debacle in Punjab and Uttarakhand assembly polls earlier this year has been blamed on the choices the party leadership made in these states.
Congress leader Rahul Gandhi, who is on the Bharat Jodo Yatra, indicated that Kharge will decide his role.
