Karnataka elections: No rubber stamp, Congress president Kharge emerges stronger as boss

From the day Siddaramaiah acolyte Zameer Ahmed's attack on DK Shivakumar triggered fears of an implosion to Saturday when a smooth campaign and deft strategy delivered a landslide, the wobbly Congress ship was steadied by "local boy" Mallikarjun Kharge's appointment as the party president last October.

Congress's victory marks the arrival as a leader of an octogenarian, a stage when most walk into the sunset reminiscing about what was and could have been.

Realising the expectations from him in his home state and the stakes involved for the struggling Congress, Kharge's invisible hand was behind the sudden reconciling of factions and the smoothest ticket allotment in the party's history.

But for the world that expects any non-Gandhi Congress president to be a "rubber stamp", Kharge post-Karnataka has emerged a force multiplier as a dalit-backward class face, a pugilist speaker, and crucially, also a safe foil against the fire-breathing BJP mascot Narendra Modi who prefers the Gandhis as the target.

Kharge addressed 39 rallies across the state and made it a point to take on Modi, regaling people with rustic humour, all along seeking their votes. The party swept his sprawling backyard of the Hyderabad-Karnataka region and also Mumbai-Karnataka. His role in consolidating dalit votes across sub-caste divisions, to the extent possible, is an achievement few leaders in politics can boast of.

If a state-level face was elevated by his chance appointment as the Congress supremo, his presidency is forcing the people to see the grand old party in new light. A dalit leader in Congress cannot match the expectations set by Mayawati, for she, the product of a unique social movement, is one of her kind. But to the extent that there can be a radical of a softer hue, Kharge is being recognised as much more than the ridiculed "token dalit". The shift in gaze towards Congress is best witnessed on remorseless social media, where even the radical new-age activists are taking notice.

It was not so long ago... The amply-built Kharge spent his life winning polls in Karnataka, earning the epithet "sollilada sardara" (the unvanquished), and yet remaining just a SC leader from a district. He watched helplessly as compromise candidate Dharam Singh and new entrant Siddaramaiah became CM. In 2009, after Siddaramaiah was made the opposition face in assembly, Kharge was eased out of Karnataka via the Lok Sabha route. It was 2014, when a badly-mauled Congress made him the leader in LS that he came into his own, locking horns with Modi, his reverberating attacks making up for the lack of numbers. And when he lost in 2019, he blamed Modi for targeting him by "misleading" the Banjara community in his constituency with "false promises". A Modi-led BJP in Karnataka became personal for him, as he also conveyed to the PM during an encounter in the Central Hall recently.

Few months ago, by a stroke of chance, the quintessential Congress loyalist was hurled into the top party chair. "Rubberstamp", "stop gap", "old" were the epithets that came his way.

On Saturday, as BJP and Modi fell by the wayside, Karnataka results swatted aside the popular derision reserved for Kharge, and delivered a non-Gandhi Congress president, who has his own strengths.