In India, the Congress party elects its new president to stop its decline

Congress party members have been waiting for this election for a long time. When the results were announced, activists at the party headquarters in New Delhi briefly showed their joy. On Wednesday, October 19, October Mallikarjun Kharge’s victory at the helm of India’s main opposition party would end more than three years of leadership crisis. Mr. Kharge, the favorite, won the contest with more than 84% of the votes against media expert Shashi Tharoor, writer and former UN diplomat.

He now faces enormous challenges. The 80-year-old veteran politician is set to get the battered party back on track ahead of the 2024 general elections. The centre-left party that has ruled India for decades since independence has not resisted the steamroller of Hindu nationalists. The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), which came to power in 2014. The Congress party now holds just 53 seats out of 543 in the Lok Sabha, the lower house of parliament, and has lost 39 of the 49 regional elections since 2014. This poor performance has led to high-ranking executives and new generation figures closing the door.

For the first time in twenty-four years, the party has ousted the Gandhi family from its leadership, but it must continue to play an essential role behind the scenes. A grassroots activist, Mallikarjun Kharge is a member of the Dalit community, once called “untouchables” and considered at the bottom of the hierarchy imposed by the caste system. He succeeded Sonia Gandhi, the widow of former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi (1984-1989), who was assassinated in 1991, and served as interim president in 2019 after the resignation of his son Rahul Gandhi.

The latter threw in the towel after his party was battered by Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the BJP in the legislative elections. The famous dynasty, unrelated to Mahatma Gandhi, has given India three prime ministers since independence: Jawaharlal Nehru, the architect of independence, his daughter Indira Gandhi, assassinated in 1984, and grandson Rajiv, father of Rahul Gandhi. .

“Continuity of Sound”

“The election of Mallikarjun Kharge is a vote of continuity as he is perceived and presented as a staunch supporter of the Gandhi family who remains the symbolic head of the party.Gilles Vernier, a professor of political science at Ashoka University, on the outskirts of New Delhi, points out. “A New Missed Opportunity”On the other hand, the former member of the party is tried under the seal of anonymity “Sees more future in a party that can’t find a way to defeat the BJP”.