Mallikarjun Kharge Elected New President Of India's Congress Party

NEW DELHI, Oct 19 (Bernama) -- India's main opposition Congress party on Wednesday announced its new president, the first chief in 24 years who is not related to the prominent Nehru dynasty. Mallikarjun Kharge, 80, a leader from Karnataka state, defeated his 66-year-old rival Shashi Tharoor, a member of parliament from Kerala. A total of 9,385 delegates voted in the party election on Oct 17 and 7,897 favoured Kharge. "It was a privilege to have received the support of over a thousand colleagues, and to carry the hopes and aspirations of so many well-wishers of Congress across India," Tharoor said on Wednesday while congratulating the new leader. Dominated by the Nehru family, the 137-year-old Indian National Congress has ruled the country for about 60 years since independence in 1947. The party has had presidents who were not part of the dynasty before and the last such organisational head was Sitaram Kesri, who was unceremoniously ousted in 1998. Sonia Gandhi, widow of slain former prime minister Rajiv Gandhi, led the party until 2017 when her son Rahul Gandhi became president. Rahul quit the party chief's post following the Congress suffering a humiliating defeat in the 2019 general election. Sonia has been serving as interim president since then. Of the 15 prime ministers in independent India, three have been from the Nehru family, starting with the country's first premier Jawaharlal Nehru. Later Nehru's daughter Indira Gandhi served as prime minister and then her son Rajiv Gandhi held the post following Indira’s assassination in 1984. No Nehru descendant has held the prime ministerial position since Rajiv's 1984-89 term. Kharge joined the Congress more than five decades ago and is considered close to Rahul and Sonia. The new Congress president faces the challenge to turn the party into a winning force against the Bharatiya Janata Party's rise on the plank of Hindu nationalism. He served as a cabinet minister in former prime minister Manmohan Singh's government. Kharge recently quit as leader of the opposition in the upper house of parliament to contest the party election. "The Congress president represents a democratic vision of India. His vast experience and ideological commitment will serve the party well as he takes on this historic responsibility," Rahul said. -- BERNAMA