Mallikarjun Kharge is proving to be a lucky mascot for the grand old party. Kharge fought AICC’s organisational elections in the most dramatic and difficult times. But almost a year later, under Kharge’s leadership, the Congress is far more comfortably placed with a semblance of unity, hope and purpose.
Paradoxically, Kharge had to jump into the organisational elections as a dark horse when probable Ashok Gehlot defied the party high command in every possible manner: On September 25, 2023, Gehlot refused to hold a meeting of the Congress legislature party in Jaipur (he was Rajasthan chief minister) and then declined to file the nomination for AICC president’s post. In fact, hours before Kharge filed the paper, he was busy blessing Digvijaya Singh’s candidature. Almost a year later, the 82-year-old party chief had the decency and the political heft to appoint Gehlot as a senior observer for Haryana.
Gehlot must be rueing every day what he did or did not do since September 25, 2023 when political acumen and judgement had taken a flight. The then Rajasthan chief minister had kept Kharge and Ajay Makan waiting for hours at Jaipur, without food or a courtesy to convene the CLP meeting as directed by Sonia Gandhi. Gehlot’s insistence to hold on to the post of state chief minister [ actually deny Sachin Pilot to emerge as a young and promising face of the party in Rajasthan] proved suicidal. Both Gehlot and the Congress in Rajasthan were consigned to defeat and ignominy in the subsequent state assembly elections in December 2023.
Kharge went on to become 88th president of the AICC (in the 139 years of the Indian National Congress) and continued being the leader of the opposition in the Rajya Sabha (equivalent to union cabinet rank minister). Gehlot, on the other hand, has been pleading and petitioning to become AICC general secretary but has not accorded the stature of Pilot in the party hierarchy.
The list of Kharge’s achievements has been endless. The Karnataka state election victory was rightly dubbed as a “Kharge moment” in the grand old party. Kharge, in the past one year, has defied many odds to emerge as ‘Manmohan Singh’ of the party organisation. It is said that comparison is a thief of joy and the adage applies well in the context of Manmohan and Kharge as their roles and profiles could not have been more different. But there is one thing that binds them together, i.e. Sonia, Rahul and Priyanka Gandhi’s complete faith, acknowledgment of experience and trust in Kharge’s judgement.
Since October 26, 2023, when he formally got elected as the Congress president, Kharge has not looked back. Gradually, he tightened grip over the organisation, became Mr dependable for the Gandhis and opened channels of communication with major opposition parties that saw the emergence of the INDI alliance. There will be no exaggeration in saying that Kharge’s personal equations and handlings have played a pivotal role in continuation of the INDI alliance before, during and after the 18th Lok Sabha polls.
From the Congress point of view, Kharge’s biggest accomplishment so far, has not been so much electoral successes in the Lok Sabha, Telangana, Karnataka and Himachal or the smooth selection of party chief ministers in somewhat tricky situations, but bringing a degree of normalcy in the functioning of the party. As a seasoned politician, Kharge has not become a factional leader within the grand old party, a den of past masters in the palace intrigue, sycophancy and ineptitude. He however, remained even handed yet cautious. For instance, Kharge refused to be part of the games that were being played in home state Karnataka before, during and after Karnataka polls. The turf war and rivalries between party general secretaries Randeep Singh Surjewala, KC Venugopal and Jairam Ramesh may have become part of the Congress folklore, but Kharge has not allowed such enmities to harm the party’s interest.
Similarly, he has ably drafted back many G23 protagonists back to rails. In fact, some G23 members (those who had signed a rather offensive missive addressed to Sonia Gandhi and finding faults with Rahul Gandhi’s style of functioning) had seconded Kharge’s candidature even though Shashi Tharoor, an erstwhile member of G23, acting as inner party democracy’s David, was in the fray. Post presidential polls, Tharoor has been a picture of party discipline and probity while Kharge readily acknowledges Tharoor’s talent and capability. From time to time, Anand Sharma, Prithviraj Chavan, Mukul Wasnik and several other G23 signatories, have been given important party work, nominations and assignments.
The author is a Visiting Fellow at the Observer Research Foundation. A well-known political analyst, he has written several books, including ‘24 Akbar Road’ and ‘Sonia: A Biography’. Views expressed in the above piece are personal and solely those of the author. They do not necessarily reflect News18’s views.
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