Challenges before the Congress ahead of the 2024 Lok Sabha polls are so humongous that no one really thinks 80-year-old Mallikarjun Kharge, who was declared elected as party chief in place of Sonia Gandhi, will steer it out of the mess.
Therefore, Kharge will remain in the post while Sonia Gandhi, Rahul Gandhi and Priyanka Gandhi and others who put him there work out a way for the Congress to be fighting fit again.
More importantly, the Gandhi family believe that Kharge’s election should serve one purpose: to tell the political rivals that the family has loosened its hold on the party post. They don’t need to be holding on to any post to control it. So other Congress leaders can claim that no other party conducts its internal election in a “democratic way” the way theirs does.
Therefore, Kharge serves the immediate needs of the Gandhis as well as the Congress. It needs a new president to tell the Election Commission that it has followed its constitution to hold a regular election after so many extensions.
As far as the electoral challenges before the Congress, barring Karnataka, which is the home state of Kharge, the Congress does not expect itself to perform very well in any of the states going to polls. Whether it is Gujarat and Himachal Pradesh this year or Tripura, Telangana, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh and Rajasthan, the Congress faces an uphill task — ahead of the 2024 parliamentary elections.
Kharge’s importance lies in the fact that, as a Dalit leader, he rose from the ranks to occupy important posts in the Congress-led government and quit as leader of the opposition to become Congress president, thanks due to the Sonia Gandhi family.
Kharge does not mince words in articulating this strength. He is clear that he will go by the guidance of the Gandhi family.
As Sonia Gandhi said she looked forward to this day, Kharge provides a buffer to the family that will remain behind him and call the shots. There are, of course, some supporters of the Congress who believe that Kharge may turn out to be a “lucky” mascot if the party trounces the BJP in Karnataka, which may be low-hanging fruit, and surges ahead to win one or two assembly polls before 2024.
But a win for Congress will not necessarily be a feather in Kharge’s cap. If the party begins to do well, then loyalists of the family are bound to clamour for Kharge to make way for Rahul Gandhi to take charge. That is why even before votes were cast on October 17, Kharge was widely seen as a winner as he was no doubt the Gandhis’ choice against a flamboyant Shashi Tharoor, 66.
If Kharge’s landslide win is any indication, it is that he is definitely the “Gandhi-approved” candidate. No surprise that he scored 7,897 votes while Shashi Tharoor finished with 1,072.
Some reckon that Tharoor’s score is also not bad, considering he was up against a “blessed” candidate.
Of course, Kharge is set to be the first non-Gandhi chief of Congress in 24 years. Last time, it was Sitaram Kesri who held the post between 1996 and 1998. Every Congressman is aware of how he had to be unceremoniously removed when Sonia Gandhi was ready to take charge as the party chief.
Will a similar fate await Kharge? Certainly not. Given his age and experience, Khare will not hang on even for an extra day once he knows he has to make for another person, be it Rahul Gandhi or anyone else. Besides, Kharge won’t defy the Gandhis. They need not fear insubordination from him.
Kharge’s USP is he is obedient?
As an 11-time MLA and minister in Karnataka and later as a central minister or even as the Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha or Rajya Sabha, Kharge has never shown any inclination for confrontation and controversy.
Therefore, Kharge can be trusted with some gravitas and respect. He won’t shoot his mouth off on all matters and can be relied upon to speak carefully on domestic and foreign affairs.
As someone said, Kharge’s elevation is as significant as Sonia Gandhi picking Manmohan Singh as the party’s prime ministerial candidate in 2004.
Interestingly, this election took place for the simple reason that Rahul Gandhi is not ready to become the president again –even three years after Sonia Gandhi agreed to temporarily hold a charge when he stepped down. Rahul Gandhi quit, taking responsibility for the two consecutive rout of the party in the 2014 and 2019 general elections.
Kharge’s name came up only when Rajasthan Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot fell out of favour with the Gandhis on his reluctance to quit his post or allow Sachin Pilot to succeed him. Kharge was a last-minute choice.
Even before the results were announced, Rahul Gandhi had declared Kharge as the winner at a press conference in Karnataka. When asked whether he would report to the new chief, he declared: “The new president will decide what my role will be. Ask Kharge ji and Sonia ji.” A formal announcement on Kharge’s election, trouncing Shashi Tharoor came an hour later.
As the counting of votes began, Tharoor alleged “extremely serious irregularities” in the election process and that it was not a level-playing field and complained of irregularities in UP in a letter to the party poll panel chief, Madhusudan Mistry.
Salman Soz, who was representing Tharoor’s team, said they had been “assured of a fair inquiry” and agreed that counting should continue. But once Kharge’s margin went up, Tharoor called up Kharge to congratulate him. Tharoor later added that the complaint was an internal matter, saying that he would like to “move on” and that it was “unfortunate that a strictly internal letter’ was leaked.
The last time, it was Jitendra Prasad who contested against Sonia Gandhi in 2000. She holds the record for being the longest-serving president of the party, having held the office for over twenty years from 1998 to 2017 and since 2019. In the 2017 elections, Rahul Gandhi became the president unopposed.
As for the problems facing Congress, there is no magic formula for it to re-emerge as the principal non-BJP pole unless it wins elections in the states. Neither Kharge nor the Gandhis holds any magic wand when Prime Minister Narendra Modi is a tough fighter.
(The author is a senior journalist and a well-known political commentator)