Kharge PM projection puts state Congress in a fix

Maqsood Maniyar| NT

Bengaluru: The suggestion that All India Congress Committee (AICC) president Mallikarjun Kharge be projected as the prime ministerial candidate for the pan-India Opposition alliance has been met with counter-intuitive circumspection by the party’s leaders in Karnataka.

The suggestion was first made by West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee and Delhi CM Arvind Kejriwal.

Kharge responded that winning the Lok Sabha polls was the priority and that all else would come up later.

Karnataka Congress, which is leading the charge on the party’s revival, could have welcomed the move, but felt there was no clear direction from the AICC leadership on the PM face.

Some of them feel they had invested heavily in Wayanad MP Rahul Gandhi’s leadership, even projecting him as the next PM at times. Also noteworthy is the fact that a number of them, including Deputy CM DK Shivakumar, are staunch Gandhi family loyalists.

Kharge’s emergence as a candidate for the top job has come as a surprise, one they aren’t able to handle. Moreover, they won’t be able to project Rahul as PM since it would be seen as a repudiation of Kharge’s candidacy.

However, some Congress leaders from Kharge’s native Kalyana Karnataka region have responded positively. Congress MLA from Yelburga in Koppal district, had recommended Kharge’s name for the post of the PM back in July.

Meanwhile, the Congress national president’s son Priyank, echoed his father’s opinion that winning was the priority but added that it would be good if Kharge senior emerged as their PM candidate.

The Grand Old Party in Karnataka is hoping for a clear statement and strategy so as to help them deal with the question with greater clarity.

Pros of AICC prez candidature

 The advantages of projecting Kharge include his vast experience, him being on excellent terms with leaders across community and region lines. He also contributed to the efforts to forge unity between Siddaramaiah and Shivakumar.

The Karnataka angle can be used by Congress to shore up support among the state’s Dalits, who make up about a third of the population.

It had, in part, helped them ride to power this past May with 135 Assembly seats. Kharge might be able to help them repeat the performance in the Lok Sabha polls.

It would be interesting to see if Kharge contests from the Kalaburagi seat, which he had lost to former Congressman Umesh Jadhav in 2019 by nearly a lakh votes.

Either the Congress national president will dedicate time to Kalaburagi or remain a Rajya Sabha MP and focus on campaigning elsewhere and keeping the alliance together.

It had been a devastating general election for the Grand Old Party in 2019. They were reduced to a single seat alongside former ally JD(S) who also bagged a solitary constituency.

Veterans like KH Muniyappa, a seven-time MP from Kolar, had also lost. It remains to be seen if the heavyweights will return to contest this time around.