Kharge will need a strong team to deliver

For the octogenarian Mallikarjun Kharge who took charge of the Congress this week, restoring cohesion and order in the party is going to be far more challenging and difficult than winning the election to the top office. To help the party and himself as the first non-Gandhi Congress president in nearly a quarter century, Kharge will need the help of his senior colleagues, notably G-3 (the Gandhis) loyalists and the G-23 pro-changers. He’d have to build on the cohesion his candidature brought between the two factions against Shashi Tharoor. What upset the latter’s fellow travellers was the fait accompli he presented them by way of his candidature without heeding proposals for a “joint” G-23 face in the contest.

But that’s in the past. There’ll be pressure now on the new party chief from leaders pursuing personal ambitions in the name of organisational reforms. For instance, several signatories to the letter the G-23 wrote to Sonia Gandhi in 2020 reconciled to the status quo on grabbing or being handed their pound of flesh. Consequently, these angry old men never organised themselves as caucuses. This set them apart from the “young Turks” — Chandrashekhar, Mohan Dharia, Krishan Kant and Chandrajit Yadav, among others — who rose after the Congress’s 1967 and 1969 electoral reverses, bound by a common approach to political, economic and social issues. This wasn’t the case with the G-23.

Having rallied around Kharge’s candidature, these leaders, collectively or individually, are sure to seek accommodation in influential party forums, especially the reconstituted Congress Working Committee (after the All India Congress Committee plenary), the parliamentary board and the central election committee, which play a crucial role in deciding poll candidates. There could also be a beeline for the constitutional office of Leader of Opposition (LoP) in the Rajya Sabha, which Kharge relinquished as part of the party’s one-man-one-post policy.

One reason why Tharoor could not match Kharge’s wide acceptability was his lack of organisational experience despite his stellar oratory, academic record, and ideating prowess. But the fact that the Kerala Member of Parliament put up a contest and managed a respectable defeat makes him a strong contender for internal positions. Struggling to recover from a string of electoral defeats since 2014, the party will be better off with Kharge’s old-school approach, blended with Tharoor’s modern touch. That might facilitate a narrative to connect with a vastly transformed India without a break from its valuable past.

In his campaign, Kharge incessantly referred to the blueprint the Congress scripted for its emancipation at the Udaipur brainstorming session. An early doable action based on the document could be the delineation of a socially inclusive second line of leadership by assigning party positions to those in the below-50 age group. As the first impression is often the last, he will have to set in motion changes that show him as his own man without disturbing the top-tier status quo, which can only be altered over time. That includes the possible change of guard in Rajasthan.

As the repository of de facto power in the party, the Gandhis aren’t going anywhere. If an astute party official read it right, the compact in the making could be exemplified by arrangements that exist in the United States where the public faces of parties are distinct from their top apparatchiks. If that’s the road the Congress takes, it’ll undergo a personality transplant, having been earlier used to prime ministers simultaneously holding the party’s reins. History does not hold out much hope for Kharge as the Congress weakened and started falling apart under two previous non-Gandhi presidents, PV Narasimha Rao and Sitaram Kesri. That set the stage for Sonia Gandhi’s entry in 1998. The late Pranab Mukherjee once told this writer that she gained stature, acceptability, and a veto in party affairs by allowing her decisions to be guided by consensus. That helped her have her way on the odd occasions she stood against the majority opinion.

Known for taking people along, Kharge could possibly replicate or improvise on the same template to suit his style. The difficult part is that the Congress won three state elections soon after Sonia Gandhi assumed command. The battle will be half won if the new president can make its electoral fortunes turn around in even one of the many upcoming polls. That, undoubtedly, is a difficult derby.

The views expressed are personal