New Delhi, Oct 26: Veteran leader Mallikarjun Kharge formally took over as Congress president on Wednesday after Sonia Gandhi passed the baton to him at a function in New Delhi.
Chairman of the central election authority of the Congress Madhusudan Mistry formally handed over the election certificate to Kharge at the function, which was attended by party leaders including Rahul and Priyanka Gandhi, Shashi Tharoor and Ashok Gehlot.
Kharge defeated Thiruvananthapuram MP Shashi Tharoor in a direct contest for the top post in the grand old party after the Gandhis opted out of the race.
Ahead of his taking over, Kharge called on former prime minister Manmohan Singh at his residence and spent some time with him.
On Wednesday morning Kharge paid homage to Mahatma Gandhi at Rajghat and also visited memorials of former prime ministers Jawaharlal Nehru, Lal Bahadur Shastri, Indira Gandhi and Rajiv Gandhi, besides former deputy prime minister Jagjivan Ram.
Kharge, 80, takes charge of the party at a time when it faces a tough challenge from a formidable BJP led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi which has ousted the Congress from many states.
For Kharge, who has served as a leader of the opposition in the Karnataka Assembly, leader of Congress in Lok Sabha and later leader of the opposition in Rajya Sabha, the current assignment comes at a time when the party is at a historic low, electorally.
With the Congress now remaining in power in only two states -- Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh -- on its own and as a junior partner in Jharkhand, Kharge's first challenge is to bring the party to power in Himachal Pradesh and Gujarat, which go to polls in the next few weeks.
Assembly elections in Himachal Pradesh are on November 12. The dates for Gujarat polls are yet to be announced.
In 2023, Kharge will face the onerous task of leading the Congress in nine assembly elections, including in his home state of Karnataka where he was an MLA for nine terms.
Kharge's election also comes at a time the party is reeling under internal rumblings and high-profile exits after a series of electoral debacles and has been reduced to a shadow of its former formidable self.
Beginning his career as chief of the Gulbarga city council, Kharge has also served as a state minister and a Lok Sabha MP from Gulbarga (2009 and 2014).
The old warhorse is well-known for not losing an election barring the 2019 Lok Sabha poll from Gulbarga.
It was after that loss that Sonia Gandhi brought Kharge to the Rajya Sabha and in February 2021 made him the leader of the opposition.
Kharge also faces the challenge of restoring the Congress' primacy in the opposition space, implementing radical reforms the party pledged at the mid-May Chintan Shivir in Udaipur and maintaining his independence in the face of insinuations that he is a candidate of the Gandhis and would seek their approval in all decisions.
The last non-Gandhi Congress president was Sitaram Kesri, who was unceremoniously removed in 1998 just after two years into his five-year term.
A leader with more than 50 years of experience in politics, Kharge is also the second All India Congress Committee (AICC) president from Karnataka after S Nijalingappa and also the second Dalit leader after Jagjivan Ram to hold the post.
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