Kharge, a family loyalist, but unlikely to be its rubber stamp

Kharge, like Rao and Kesri, might come across as a weak candidate, but like them, he is no pushover and unlikely to be the family's rubber stamp for long

With its plans to have Ashok Gehlot on the top seat gone awry, the last-minute entry of veteran Mallikarjun Kharge into the Congress presidential race is a signal that the party's first family wants to have its loyalist replace Sonia Gandhi and has bet on the arch detractor of Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

Kharge's candidacy means that the Gandhis want to leave nothing to chance. They want the best of both worlds after Rahul Gandhi's declaration that no one from the Gandhi-Nehru family would be contesting the party polls.

A non-Gandhi will now be at the helm after nearly 25 years, with the last such incumbent being the late Sitaram Kesri, who had succeeded the late prime minister P V Narasimha Rao soon after the Congress defeat in the Lok Sabha polls in 1996.

Eighty-year-old Kharge, a Dalit leader of the Congress, is set to be the next Congress chief in a virtual straight fight with former Union minister Shashi Tharoor, who has brought much interest in the race through his wit and wisdom, talk and tactics.

Read | Cong prez polls: Tharoor to start his campaign from Nagpur today, to visit Deekshabhoomi

The way Ghulam Nabi Azad parted ways with the Congress and walked into the pro-BJP space, the Gandhis are wary of the ways of several party leaders. They realise that the BJP's 'Congress mukt Bharat campaign' is not a hollow threat.

Despite being the underdog, 66-year-old Tharoor has, in a way, electrified the contest in every which way. Even if he loses, he will always remain a leader to watch, who will be patiently heard and with interest. His opinion will matter to whoever is in authority.

It will be an election to watch between the old guard seeking to revive the Nehru-Gandhi legacy and a man with modern ideas who wants to turn the Congress around ahead of the next Lok Sabha polls, which is just 18 months away.

The last time an election was seen for the Congress Presidentship was some 25 years back when Sitaram Kesri easily trounced Sharad Pawar and the late Rajesh Pilot.

Like Kharge, Tharoor, too, is a Nehruvian well aware of the first prime minister's contribution to shaping the republic. A public intellectual and diplomat, he has written several books, including, Why I am a Hindu?

Interestingly, it will be a south-south battle as both Kharge and Tharoor hail from southern India, the former from Karnataka and later from Kerala.

If elected, Kharge will be the first Congress President from Karnataka after the late S Nijalingappa. Incidentally, in 1969, Congress faced its first significant split as the old guard led by Nijalingappa expelled prime minister Indira Gandhi from the party for "fostering a cult of personality". The Syndicate, as the senior members were called, could not come to terms with the fact that the "gungi gudiya" - their snide reference for Indira -had a mind of her own.

Read | Tharoor rules out withdrawing from Cong president poll as Kharge files nomination

The last Congress president from the south was former PM P V Narasimha Rao from 1991 to 1996, who did everything to marginalise the first family. Rao hailed from Telangana, which was then part of the undivided Andhra Pradesh.

The tragedy is that though Kharge is not new to the Congress, the high command understood his worth when the party fell on bad days. Even though Kharge was in the UPA-2, he mainly handled 'passenger' ministries.

A senior party leader's remark in 2014 suggesting that Kharge was a huge discovery for the party was both tragic and comic. It was because it indicated that the Gandhis realised the importance of the veteran leader only in adversity and did not much care for him when they were calling the shots.

The candidacy of Kharge, who has been a senior minister in Karnataka for several years, is a tribute to his loyalty, hard work and dedication, especially in the past eight years, which have been challenging times.

With Assembly elections in Karnataka scheduled next year, Kharge's detractors in the state could face challenging times. He had the ambition to be the state's chief minister, but former CM Siddharamaiah had checkmated him despite being a late entrant to the Congress.

A silent worker, Kharge is not given over to boast about himself. It surprised many when he was made the Leader of the Congress in the Lok Sabha in May 2014. But Kharge showed that their trust in him was well placed. At that time, Amarinder Singh was the deputy leader of the Congress, while Jyotiraditya Scindia was the chief whip. Amarinder hardly came to Parliament as the Maharaja apparently did not like to play the deputy. Scindia was rarely to be seen in Parliament House after the Zero Hour. Kharge used to hold the fort by sitting in the House till it rose for the day and would instantly be up on his feet if the opposition was unnecessarily needled. Incidentally, both Amarinder and Scindia are now in the BJP.

Despite all odds, Kharge could then put a semblance of opposition unity on the floor. Since the Congress tally was just 44 in a 543-member House, the Modi dispensation did not give him the leader of the Opposition status. It was sweet revenge by the Congress when Kharge was made the Leader of the Opposition in the Rajya Sabha after the end of the Rajya Sabha term of Ghulam Nabi Azad. The last Dalit leader who became the Congress president was the late Jagjivan Ram in the 1970s when Indira Gandhi was the PM.

Also read | Kharge missed many buses but now may become Cong president

Kharge's presidency would mean Rahul Gandhi, who has been making waves with his Bharat Jodo Yatra, is bound to be the Congress's prime ministerial candidate. That may be the case, but the Karnataka leader is bound to emerge as another power centre in the party. In that sense, he is no pushover and has the strength and articulation to bring to fruition his ideas.

It is said that the more things change, the more they remain the same. It aptly suits the Congress presidential polls, whose outcome looks assured, and the later internal equations in the grand old party.

The Congress party's history shows that in recent decades attempts to foist weak leaders as party chiefs did not remain rubber stamps of the high command. It was the same case with Narasimha Rao and with Kesri.

(The authors are senior journalists)