An 80-year-old Mallikarjun Kharge expectedly became the 65th president of the country’s oldest political party (137 years old). The support extended by Gandhi family and the Gandhi family loyalists pre-elections had only left one thing to determine-the number of votes Kharge would receive. Although MP Shashi Tharoor came forward with the thought to erase Congress’ image as Gandhi-oriented and received over a thousand votes, Kharge’s win only proves that the internal democracy exists within Congress. In simple language, Kharge vs Tharur was Bharat vs India.
Congress as a thought goes back to pre-independence and has reached to each and every village of the country. There will not be a single village where one will find a person who disagrees with the ideology of Congress which is why it was important for the party to have a chief who thinks of everybody’s betterment. Tharoor is a leader who represents modern India. His thoughts and views are universal, however, our country is scattered into different regions, cultures, hundreds of languages, dialects, rituals, religions, sects, ideologies and so on. There is no homogeneity and hence, it is not as easy to keep everything tied together.
The only thing that saved Congress from breaking into parts was the aura and attraction surrounding the Gandhi family. Although many parties such as YSR Congress, Rashtrawadi Congress and Trinamool Congress took birth from the Indian National Congress, rest all were merged back into the main party except the three aforementioned ones. While taking a dig at Congress, BJP always makes sure to criticise Gandhi family over familialism. The BJP’s leadership is well aware that Congress will vanish once the influence of Gandhi family over the party diminishes. So even now while choosing the new party president, the country’s oldest political party has taken care that the core control will remain with the Gandhi family.
The name Gandhi helps Congressmen to stay united. A while back some of the Congress leaders had formed a different group demanding to elect a new chief in a democratic way. Respecting their demand, Rahul Gandhi declared that he will not be contesting the presidential poll and chose to stay away from Delhi by involving himself in Bharat Jodo Yatra instead. After independence, the leadership of Congress stayed with the Gandhi family for 42 years out of 75. At the same time it should not be forgotten that for the rest of the 33 years the leadership was in the hands of non-Gandhi leaders. Hence, there is nothing surprising with Kharge becoming the chief. However, taking the adverse shift in the country’s political environment into the consideration, the Gandhi family realised that keeping Congress united in itself is the biggest challenge at the moment.
The challenges in front of Kharge are aplenty. If he was limited as the leader of opposition in Rajya Sabha then he would have saved himself a lot of struggle. For now his biggest task will be to increase the organisational strength of the party. The BJP at Centre has imprinted on the minds of the people that having the same party in power at centre and in the state helps to have faster development. Congress in order to thwart the claims of ‘double-engine’ government will have to make people believe that development and having the same party in power at both ‘platforms’ is not mutually exclusive.
First and foremost, Congress will have to leave their outdated court politics behind. Congress has been that party which would work for people from grassroots level and in order to solve their problems, the party will have to take it to the roads along with the common men. It is not easy to create the trust that Congress is capable enough to fight BJP’s politics.
We all are aware of the party’s current dirty image in our own state of Goa. Ten MLAs last time and 8 this time switched to BJP; does one have to say anything more? And there is no doubt that more Congress MLAs will follow the suit. Hence, Kharge will have to go an extra mile, or perhaps miles, to find Congress loyalists and strengthen them to stay planted. And while finding the able leaders to take the charge, he will also need to be careful of not neglecting the ones who have stayed with the party in its ups and downs. He will have to find the middle ground between the Gandhi loyalist group and the group which is of the opinion that Congress needs to adapt to the changes. The series of challenges seem never ending and stamp on Kharge’s success or failure will be sealed after 2024 Lok Sabha elections.
