Mallikarjun Kharge was declared president of the Congress Party on Wednesday, the first non-Gandhi to head the party in two decades. Kharge got over 7,897 votes, meanwhile Shashi Tharoor got 1,072 votes. Here's everything you need to know about Kharge.
Congress veteran Mallikarjun Kharge has swept the high-stakes Congress presidential election by securing 7,897 of the total 9,385 votes, while his opponent, Shashi Tharoor, trailed behind with 1,072 votes. Kharge is now prepared to succeed Sonia Gandhi, the interim Congress leader who has held the position since Rahul Gandhi resigned following the 2019 Lok Sabha elections. Kharge will thus become the Congress' first non-Gandhi president in more than 20 years.
Kharge, who was born in 1942, entered politics at the age of 27 in 1969 after being discovered as a promising young leader by the late Karnataka chief minister D Devaraj Urs. When he initially ran in the 1972 Assembly elections, he officially entered electoral politics.
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After the 2009 general elections, when he ran for and won the Gulbarga parliamentary seat to become the first member of the Lok Sabha, his journey to national politics began. In 2014, Kharge triumphed a second time. But in 2019, he fell short to the BJP. Kharge was chosen to lead the Congress party in the Lok Sabha in June 2014. Additionally, he served as the Center's Minister of Labor and Employment and Minister of Railways in the government.
Kharge is regarded as one of the most well-known Dalit faces of the Congress and a devoted supporter of the Gandhis.
He holds the distinction of being the first politician to have served as leader of the opposition in the Lok Sabha, Rajya Sabha, and the legislative assembly and council of a state (Karnataka).
He joined Government College after finishing his studies at Gulbarga's Nutan Vidyalaya. He studied in a law college in Gulbarga and began practising law in Justice Shivaraj Pati's courtroom. At the outset of his legal practise, Kharge took on four lawsuits for labour organisations.
Then, the labour unions were Kharge's lifeline. He gained notoriety as a leader of the Samyukta Majdoor Sangha labour organisation and an advocate for workers' rights. Mallikarjun Kharge soon advanced to the position of president of the Gulbarga City Congress Committee after joining the Indian National Congress in 1969.
According to various media reports, Kharge has a net worth of around Rs 15 crore.
The 78-year-old political veteran from Karnataka was elected to the Rajya Sabha on June 12, 2022. He was chosen to serve as the opposition's leader in the Rajya Sabha, a position he left on October 1 of 2022 to run for president of Congress.