Former minister Mallikarjun Kharge, 80, was elected by party members to replace Sonia Gandhi as president of the once-powerful party, which helped win India’s independence 75 years ago .
Congress ruled India for decades after the former British colony gained independence in 1947, but today it is a shadow of its former self, discredited and crushed under the weight election of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).
The Gandhi family is not related to India’s independence icon, Mahatma Gandhi, but is descended from the country’s first prime minister, Jawaharlal Nehru.
Nehru was the father of former Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, assassinated in 1984. She herself was the mother of Rajiv Gandhi, killed by a suicide bomber in 1991.
The BJP has crushed Congress in the last two elections, with Mr Modi deriding Rahul Gandhi — son of Rajiv and Sonia — as an antiquated prince and playboy.
After the latest defeat in 2019, Rahul resigned as party chairman and handed over the reins to his Italian-born mother, Sonia, who is now 75.
The party’s new leader, Mallikarjun Kharge, a former minister of railways and labor from the low-caste Dalit community, is widely seen as a supporter of Sonia and Rahul.
Rahul Gandhi said on Wednesday that Kharge was now the party’s supreme authority. He “will decide my role in the party”, he said.
Despite their withdrawal, Sonia and Rahul should continue to pull the strings behind the scenes, say local media.
– “To win” –
Mallikarjun Kharge, who is four months older than US President Joe Biden, now faces the daunting challenge of winning the next national election, due in 2024, and three local elections next year, including in his state of origin from Karnataka, in the south of the country.
Mr Kharge was opposed to Shashi Tharoor, a 66-year-old former UN deputy secretary-general, who was campaigning for “change” in the leadership.
Mr Tharoor conceded defeat on Twitter, wishing Mr Kharge “every success”.
Since the last national election, won by the BJP, the Congress party is down to 53 seats in the lower house of parliament, which has 543.
The decision to elect a president from outside the Gandhi family shows that the party is “tired of criticism from the BJP and Modi”, Rasheed Kidwai, a member of the Observer Research Foundation and a keen observer of Congress since then, told AFP. years.
He added that there was a “good chance” Mr Kharge could turn the party’s situation around.
“He may be 80 years old, but he is healthy and a workaholic. He meets with party leaders to discuss state and regional issues,” Mr Kidwai said.
“But at the end of the day, in an electoral democracy, what matters is winning the elections.”
