Will Kharge be a rubber stamp or a connect between party and family?

He’s won many elections: But can he also win them for the Congress party? This is the question members are asking themselves as Mallikarjun Kharge becomes the first non-Gandhi president of the party in two decades and only the sixth elected one in the party’s history.

Barring the Lok Sabha election in 2019, when he lost his home borough, Gulbarga, to the BJP, Kharge has never lost an election. He won from Gurmitkal Assembly constituency in Karnataka nine times in a row before he plunged into the Lok Sabha poll arena in 2009. He won from Karnataka's Gulbarga in 2014 when the tide was against the Congress.

That said, Kharge has his share of regret: that despite winning so consistently from his home state, he never managed to get the top job. What he really wanted was to become chief minister – from 1972 when he first came into the Assembly and became a minister in the Devaraj Urs government in 1976. He was a minister in the Gundu Rao ministry in 1980, the S Bangarappa cabinet in 1990 and in the M Veerappa Moily government from 1992 to 1994. His role changed in 1994 when he became the opposition leader in the Assembly. In 1999, he was among the contenders for chief minister but was pipped at the post by S M Krishna. In 2004, it was Dharam Singh who bested him. In 2013, the BJP government in Karnataka fell but again, Kharge lost the chance. Siddaramaiah got the top job.

Kharge began life as a trade union lawyer and knows what it is to struggle. He doesn’t like to be reminded that he’s a Dalit. But the story of his life and times is impressive.  Scheduled castes (SC) and tribes (ST) in Karnataka together constitute 23.5 per cent and account for 18 per cent reservation in government and educational sectors (15 per cent for SCs and 3 per cent for STs). But the SC divide in Karnataka is broadly divided into Right Hand (Holeyas) and Left Hand (Madigas) Dalits. The Holeyas (the right-hand Dalits) shun the Madigas in all the ways in which the upper castes shun them: there is no inter-marriage, interdining or social relations between the two sub-castes. Moreover, the Left Dalits feel the Right Dalits corner all the benefits of reservation. Most of the Dalit Congress leaders in Karnataka, Kharge included, are Right Dalits. The net result is: the Left Dalits have all crossed over to the BJP.

From 2014 to 2019, Kharge fought insult, humiliation and worse on behalf of the Congress. The party did not have the numbers in 2014, to qualify to become the leader of the opposition: Congress could get only 44 seats when it was required to get at least 55 seats of 10 per cent of the total strength of the House to qualify for the position of Leader of Opposition.

So although his party named him as such, he was never recognised as one by Speaker Sumitra Mahajan. There are several committees on which the presence of the leader of opposition is mandatory – to select the chief of the Central Bureau of Investigation and the Central Vigilance Commissioner to name just two. He boycotted the meetings to select the Lokpal because he was invited to participate as a “special invitee” with no powers, since he was not recognised as the leader of the opposition

When he lost the Lok Sabha election, the Congress offered him a seat in the Rajya Sabha. Here, too, he was made leader of the opposition, though many would argue that younger, more vigorous MPs like Jairam Ramesh might have done better.

Kharge is patient and gracious: Without a trace of vindictiveness, he sought out his rival Shashi Tharoor even before the Gandhi family had a chance to felicitate him. The less charitable in the party say he owes his present appointment to the grace of Sonia Gandhi – the family wanted someone who wouldn’t talk back, would not exert himself too much, basically an unquestioning, unthreatening loyalist. Now that he’s got the job, his problems have increased manifold: he will have to sort out the leadership problems in Rajasthan where the party is facing deep internal rebellion; Chhattisgarh (ditto) and lead the party to victory in the dozen or so upcoming Assembly elections, including in his home state, Karnataka. 

“I hope Kharge will use his electoral and administrative experience in strengthening the Congress and take it to new heights. I am confident that he will renew the consultative process that existed in the party earlier," former Maharashtra chief minister, Prithivraj Chavan said. "There are many unresolved issues and the Assembly elections in two states due this year. There is the 2024 challenge as well. I hope Kharge takes the party to new heights," he said.

Party sources said he had three choices: One, to act as a rubber stamp on decisions taken by the Gandhi family; second to stonewall many of these with resolve and be his own man; third, the lay himself down as a bridge over troubled waters, a connect between the family and the party like Ahmad Patel used to be.

It is not immediately clear which model Mallikarjun Kharge will adopt.