Mallikarjun Kharge completed one year in office as Congress President on October 26. The 81-year-old leader is the first non-Gandhi to head the party in 25 years after he was elected in the party’s internal polls for the top post. Under his leadership, the party has been able to rejuvenate its cadres with back-to-back victories in Karnataka and Himachal Pradesh. However, during his one year stint as the party chief, Kharge brought the much-needed change in party’s functioning when he reconstituted the crucial Congress Working Committee (CWC), the party’s highest decision making body.
Kharge reconstituted the CWC with the mixture of veteran and young leaders in the party’s top decision making body, which gave a clear glimpse of the flexibility while focusing on infusing fresh blood and energy with the experience of veteran leaders. While the panel includes 39 general members, it has 32 permanent invitees, including some in-charges of state and 13 special invitees giving representation to all sections and factions. Even Gandhi family loyalists were duly accommodated while members of the G-23 also found a place in the new team.
Under Kharge’s leadership in the last one year, the party has been able to win the crucial assembly election in Karnataka earlier this year and Himachal Pradesh in December last year, just days after taking over the reign of the party. He has also proved to be an able consensus-builder. In Himachal Pradesh, despite party veterans like Pratibha Singh, wife of former Chief Minister Virbhadra Singh and her son Vikramidtya Singh being in the race, Kharge went with Sukhvinder Singh Sukhu as the Chief Minister of the hill state. He managed the situation through dialogues with Pratibha Singh to agree for Sukhu at the top post of the state.
Similarly, he sorted out the leadership crisis in Karnataka between rivals Siddaramaiah and D K Shivakumar. But the most important was the handling of Rajasthan Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot and Sachin Pilot issue. Besides naming Pilot in the CWC, who had led the mutiny against the Gehlot government in 2020, Kharge also sorted the issue between the two warring leaders by holding multiple rounds of meetings. Even the exodus from the party stopped after Kharge took the helm of the party affairs as he handled every situation delicately by keeping the leadership informed.
Kharge was also instrumental in bringing together the like-minded parties for the 2024 Lok Sabha Polls and it was his joint effort with Rahul Gandhi and other party leaders to sort out their personal ambitions with the formation of 28 parties Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance (INDIA). Perhaps Kharge’s biggest achievement has been that he has not been embroiled in any controversy so far. The forthcoming assembly polls in Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh and Telangana are the next big test for him.
