Soon after Kharge’s nomination – filing, Congress leader Manish Tewari extended support to him and said, “Mallikarjun Kharge is a senior leader of the Congress party. I and Anand Sharma have come to support his nomination here.”
Senior Congress leader Mallikarjun Kharge on Friday said that he has filed his nomination for the president of Congress and said he was fighting for a big change in the party.
The Leader of the Opposition in the Rajya Sabha has been backed by leaders like Manish Tewari, Anand Sharma, and others of the Group of 23 (those who are fighting for reforms in the party), and his candidature was proposed by senior leaders including A K Antony, Ashok Gehlot, Digvijaya Singh, Mukul Wasnik, Pramod Tiwari among others.
“I thank all the leaders, workers, delegates, and ministers who came in support of me today and encouraged me. We will see the results on October 17. I am hopeful that I will win,” The 80-year-old, said addressing a press conference after filing nominations at the All India Congress Committee office in Delhi today.
“I have been connected to the ideology of Congress since my childhood, I used to campaign for the same Gandhi – Nehru ideology when I was in class 8 and 9,” the 80-year-leader said adding that the efforts to revive the party shall continue.
Soon after Kharge’s nomination – filing, Congress leader Manish Tewari extended support to him and said, “Mallikarjun Kharge is a senior leader of the Congress party. I and Anand Sharma have come to support his nomination here.”
Also Read: Anger and disappointment in Talegaon village after Vedanta-Foxconn project shifts to Gujarat
Notably, Congress MP and G-23 member Shashi Tharoor and Jharkhand leader KN Tripathi have also filed their nomination for the party president post today.
Who Is Mallikarjun Kharge; The staunch Gandhi Loyalist: Starting from his college days, Malikarjun Kharge was inclined toward politics and was a part of the student union.
According to a veteran journalist, while studying for his law degree at the Seth Shankarlal Lahoti College, Kharge worked in a cinema theatre to manage his finances.
Kharge was active in taking up labor-related cases to help labor unions. He practiced under Shivaraj Patil, who eventually became a judge of the Supreme Court.
The King Of Karnataka Assembly: Of the 12 elections he has contested, Kharge lost only once – in 2019. He was elected to the Karnataka assembly nine times consecutively, between 1972 and 2008. Eight of the victories came from the Gurmitkal constituency when it was reserved for Scheduled Castes, and once from Chitapur. He also won from the Gulbarga Lok Sabha constituency in 2009 and 2014, earning him the sobriquet of Solilada Sardara.
The CM JINX: Despite nine consecutive assembly victories, the Karnataka CM’s chair is still a dream for the Congress veteran. An opportunity he lost thrice. First, in 1999 when S M Krishna pipped him to the post, the second time in 2004 when his close friend Dharam Singh became the consensus candidate to head a Congress–Janata Dal (Secular) coalition, and the third time in 2013 when Siddaramiah edged him out of the race. However, he has held several ministerial positions in the state government and has been the leader of the opposition as well as the KPCC President.
Target For Sangh Parivar: He has been on the radar of the Sangh-Parivar for publically denouncing Sanatana Dharma.
Kharge has several times declared that he is a follower of Buddha and Ambedkar, even as he has accused the RSS and BJP of trying to foist the caste system.
The Congress leader has insisted that he should be judged for his competence and gets angry when asked whether his being a Dalit has been a factor in his rise.
The saffron party alleges Kharge that he has always contested from reserved constituencies and that he gave up the Gurmitkal seat, which had elected him eight times after it was de-reserved and moved to neighboring Chittapur.
The Only Defeat: The only time Kharge tasted defeat at the hustings was in the 2019 general elections when the BJP won 25 of the 28 Lok Sabha constituencies in Karnataka. Kharge was defeated by his former protégé Umesh Jadhav, who used to be his election agent and had become a legislator but had subsequently defected to the BJP. This is a defeat that rankles Kharge, who has repeatedly said it was a defeat for the principles and ideology he stood for and not a personal setback.
Second Congress President From Karnataka: Kharge who is most likely to win the Congress polls for the premier post with the support of Rajasthan Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot who was earlier expected to run for the post, Ambika Soni, Pawan Bansal, Anand Sharma, Bhupendra Singh Hooda, Mukul Wasnik, Prithviraj Chavan, Avinash Pandey, Manish Tewari, Rajiv Shukla, Raghuveer Meena, If wins, would be the second president of the Congress party from Karnataka, after S Nijalingappa who served as the Congress chief in the mid-1960s.
Interestingly, it would also mean that the two senior-most positions of the Congress party would be occupied by Kannadigas.
B V Srinivas who is the incumbent chief of the Youth wing of the Grand Old Party and if Kharge wins the presidency, it would be an additional feather in the cap for the party in Karnataka, which is poll-bound next year.
Meanwhile, The Congress Bharat Jodo Yatra led by former president Rahul Gandhi is in its Karnataka leg and has completed 23 days of the Padayatra.
As an independent media platform, we do not take advertisements from governments and corporate houses. It is you, our readers, who have supported us on our journey to do honest and unbiased journalism. Please contribute, so that we can continue to do the same in future.
