New Delhi: It will be the unassuming 80-year-old Mallikarjun Kharge, a former Union minister, nine-time MLA from Kalaburagi in Karnataka, and three-time MP, who will be helming the beleaguered Congress party after his commanding victory over Shashi Tharoor. The challenges in front of him are manifold – from reviving the party on the ground to putting up a strong opposition show at the Centre, apart from also leading his party in the crucial 2024 parliamentary elections.
His elevation to the position of Congress president has come at a time when the Karnataka leader will find himself immediately at the deep end of things. He will first have to find ways to work out a common course for different factions within the party that have emerged – both in the All India Congress Committee and in various state units, including his home state, where former chief minister Siddaramaiah and PCC chief D.K. Shivakumar’s rivalry has impeded the party’s functioning. His leadership will be first tested in the upcoming state elections in Gujarat and Himachal Pradesh but more so in Karnataka and Rajasthan next year, by which time he should be firmly in command.
The Congress delegates have handed him the responsibility of finding a grip for the party that is possibly facing the worst crisis in its more than a century-old history. Will Kharge live up to such high expectations, not merely within but also of many others in civil society who look up to it as the principal opposition party?
If his track record is something to go by, Kharge has proven himself to be a committed Congressman more than once, showing exemplary skills in crisis management, governance and leadership and establishing his independent credentials over a political career spanning more than 50 years.
Congress leader Sonia Gandhi with newly elected Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge, in New Delhi, October 19, 2022. Photo: PTI
Not a run-of-the-mill leader
The impression of Kharge among Karnataka bureaucrats and political workers is first and foremost of a self-effacing, fair, and dignified leader – one who has never taken undue advantage of his power for personal gains in any situation. At the same time, he is said to be the most forthcoming in using his influence to advance public causes.
Rishikesh Bahadur Desai, a senior journalist based out of Belagavi, told The Wire that it was a running joke among state IAS officers during the Congress governments that between Kharge and another senior Congress leader, the former’s phone calls should always be answered as it would always be about a public issue. On the contrary, the other senior Congress leader’s phones would mostly be to pull personal favours out of the government’s mechanisms.
Among the many positive anecdotes that have been circulating in Karnataka about Kharge are two small but telling incidents that speak highly of his character. “Around a decade ago, sometime between 2013 and 2014, when Kharge was the Union railways minister, someone credited him with starting the much-awaited inter-city express train between Bidar and Hyderabad. Kharge immediately stood up, came to the stage and said that it wasn’t him but his predecessor, Trinamool Congress leader Dinesh Trivedi, who had initiated it,” Desai said.
In a similar story, Desai said that he isn’t a run-of-the-mill leader who would favour his aides when in power. “When he was the state home minister between 1999 and 2004, his trusted gunman Hanumant Rao, a police constable, failed an exam that was conducted to promote constables with an undergraduate degree to the level of sub-inspector. One IPS officer recalled to me how Kharge never asked a favour for Rao once he failed the exam. Rao eventually retired as a sub-inspector but only through promotions based on work experience.” the journalist said.
Kharge is one of those old-school leaders who rarely take credit for the instrumental roles they play, choosing to remain in the background and work towards keeping the wheel moving. He is known to be meticulous when he is given any responsibility, can be found taking copious notes in his diary during meetings, and dealing with crises calmly but with sure-footedness.
Having held multiple portfolios of significance in three Congress governments in Karnataka and at the Centre between 1978 and 2014, Kharge has been the chief emissary for the AICC for long. He played an instrumental role in resolving the Maharashtra government crisis during Prithviraj Chavan’s tenure and other crises in the Congress party. He is also credited with bringing former BJP leader and Gujarat chief minister Shankersinh Vaghela into the Congress when he rebelled against his party. More recently, he was seen resolving the crisis in Rajasthan when chief minister Ashok Gehlot’s loyalists rebelled against the party high command after he was asked by the Gandhis to contest the presidential elections.
Congress workers celebrate after senior party leader Mallikarjun Kharge won the party’s presidential election, in Mumbai, October 19, 2022. Photo: PTI
Steeped in pluralism
Kharge is steeped in the Congress ideology of pluralism like perhaps no other. Belonging to the Holeya caste group, a Dalit community, he has seen a much harsher childhood than one can imagine, but something that has also prepared him for big struggles. He lost his biological mother and two siblings in a riot in 1947. Some consider the clash to be a communal one, led by the Razakars, the Nizam of Hyderabad’s private militia. The Razakars violently opposed the princely state’s accession to the Indian union. Others also believe that the clash was a local riot without any religious overtones.
Nonetheless, his hut in the Waravatti village was left half-burnt, forcing his father and him to immigrate to Kalaburagi (formerly Gulbarga) town. Yet, Kharge never harboured any communal prejudices like so many others who have suffered the same fate. His father began to work in the Gulbarga-based M.S.K Cotton Mill during which Kharge acquired a law degree, and became a national-level hockey player in Nizam’s team before being forced to quit due to a knee injury. He emerged as a prominent union leader of headload workers in the mill and also as a student leader in his college.
He credits his political career to the Ambedkarite reformer V. Shyam Sunder, who introduced him to anti-caste ideals, and which eventually shaped his political personality – first as a member of the Republican Party of India, the chief of the Gulbarga chapter of the Public Education Society founded by Ambedkar himself, and then a Congress worker since 1972. He quit the Congress for a couple of years, when he joined former Congress Karnataka chief minister Devaraj Urs, who rebelled to form his own party, the Congress (Urs). However, Kharge came back and since then has been one of the most important leaders in the grand-old party.
Yet, despite winning the Gulbarga assembly seat nine times, he was denied the chief minister’s position. Observers say that representatives from other dominant communities were preferred over Kharge, who is from the Dalit community which is not very electorally influential. Denied the chief ministership thrice, Kharge was eventually called by the party high command to play a national role – a responsibility he has carried with elan both in parliament and within the organisation.
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In 2014, as a second-time MP, Kharge found himself in an unenviable position of the leader of the Congress in the Lok Sabha, when the party was reduced to merely 44 seats and most senior leaders had lost. Kharge rose to the occasion and famously said in 2014, “We may be 44 in the Lok Sabha, but the Pandavas will never be intimidated by a hundred Kauravas.” He has since then played the most important role for his party in parliament.
Kharge lost his first election in 2019, from his constituency Kalaburagi. He was given a Rajya Sabha seat following that but his stature and position in the party and his state remain unblemished. Therefore, it wasn’t a surprise when he emerged as the ‘consensus candidate’ for the party president position over Digvijaya Singh, after Gehlot’s candidature was ruled out by Sonia Gandhi.
The Congress is in new hands. A polyglot proficient in Hindi, Dakhani, Kannada, Marathi and English, Kharge is the sixth Congress president in independent India to have come from the South after B. Pattabhi Sitaramayya, N. Sanjiva Reddy, K. Kamraj, S. Nijalingappa and P.V. Narasimha Rao.
Given his rich experience, Kharge may well emerge as the ideal person who can complement the Gandhi family’s leadership in the party without being subservient to it. He may have been the Gandhi family’s second choice and will wear a crown of thorns, but with a long-standing political career, Kharge will know that the only way for the Congress to go is forward.
