Mallikarjun Kharge emerged as the new Congress president, a person from outside the Gandhi family in over two decades to lead the party. The results, which gave Shashi Tharoor a meagre 1,072 votes, and Kharge an overwhelming win, showed the weightage of the family regime at the poll. The 416 votes that have been declared invalid came as another surprise.
The larger question now is whether the new president can resurrect the party from the crisis it is currently in and whether Kharge will be an acceptable leader to the party cadres that are soaked in the Gandhi legacy across States.
The grand old party has been facing a leadership vacuum for a long time, with Rahul Gandhi keeping himself out and Sonia Gandhi holding an interim charge, but can this election bring about a turnaround? The Gandhis may have succeeded in showcasing a democratic side of the party via this election, but the next big question is about giving independence. So it sounds amusing when Rahul Gandhi says that the new president will decide where to deploy him.
Congress is a large party rooted in the legacy of the Gandhis. Cut into Goa, Kharge would be an unknown figure for over half of the party cadre, and their belief in anyone other than the Gandhis would be zero at this point. While the party is struggling at every level, and we have seen it in the recently concluded Zilla Panchayat by-poll in Goa, the Congress cadres needed someone they could relate to.
The Congress needed direction and freshness of thought. For the many leaders who have lost hope and migrated to other parties, it was their disillusionment that forced the change. The Bharat Jodo Yatra that Rahul has undertaken was seen as an effort to bring together people from various states and build new bridges, but it helped very little against the backdrop of the party cracking and also losing crucial elections.
The one question that Congressmen need to ask themselves is: Is Kharge the President they look up to drive the party into the future? Or have they voted for the Gandhis in the name of Kharge? If the choice is the latter, it could bring in more misery for the party, and if 2024 general election is anywhere on the mind, the election success could now be an even more distant dream given the disconnect.
The BJP, riding high on a string of successes at the Centre and States, including Goa, always found the Gandhis a thorn in the flesh and spared no opportunity to attack them. From Prime Minister Narendra Modi to Home Minister Amit Shah and BJP President JP Nadda, the entire BJP machinery was focused on attacking Rahul even when he was not projected as the party president.
Kharge is the third Dalit president of Congress. He is a practising Buddhist, a labour law expert and has a ready wit and sarcasm that reflects clearly on the veteran leader’s persona. However, at age 80, can he be the man to take the party forward and bridge the generational divide? Time will tell.
