New Delhi: In his first speech as Congress president, an emotional Mallikarjun Kharge thanked the party for appointing a mill labourer’s son to its top post. The nine-time MLA and three-time MP was anointed the first non-Gandhi president of the party in 24 years.
Kharge had last week defeated Congress MP Shashi Tharoor by a huge margin and was elected national president of the Congress.
“This moment is a very emotional one for me. I thank all of you for electing the son of a mill labourer, an ordinary worker as Congress president and giving him this honour,” said Kharge, addressing a large number of party leaders and workers who had gathered at the All India Congress Committee (AICC) headquarters in Delhi Tuesday for the newly-appointed leader’s oath-taking ceremony.
“The journey that I started as the president of a block Congress committee in 1969 has today culminated in this with your support,” he added.
On stage with Kharge during the ceremony were outgoing president Sonia Gandhi, party general secretaries K.C. Venugopal and Ajay Maken, and all members of the party’s Central Election Authority (CEA) led by its chairman Madhusudan Mistry.
Rahul Gandhi, back in Delhi for the first time since the Bharat Jodo Yatra began, was also on stage. Priyanka Gandhi Vadra, however, was sitting in the audience.
In the first set of announcements that he made as party president, Kharge — only the third Dalit head of the party in its 137 years of existence — said that a ‘social justice committee’ will be formed to advise him and that a leadership mission for SC/STs and OBCs will also be created.
The new chief also praised Sonia Gandhi and said: “I remember when on 15 January, 1998, in your first public meeting at the National High School Ground in Bengaluru, you said that you are taking political lessons from Karnataka. Since then, you have worked selflessly and handled the Congress party with your hard work.”
Sonia, who handed over her responsibilities to Kharge today, said she was “relieved”.
“I’m relieved today because the years-long love and respect you have given me was also a big responsibility. Today, I’m free from this responsibility,” said Sonia. “I congratulate our new president Mallikarjun Kharge ji from the bottom of my heart.”
“The way the Congress president was elected in a democratic way, I hope that in a similar manner, all of you will work together to make Congress a force that can successfully face all the problems that plague our country,” she added.
During his speech, Kharge promised to fulfil the clauses of the Udaipur Declaration, a resolution that was passed at the party’s Nav Sankalp Shivir in May this year.
He announced that the Public Insight Committee and the Election Management Committee that was to be formed after the Shivir will be formed now. As per the declaration, the Public Insight Committee will conduct surveys and gauge public mood on key issues, and the Election Management Committee will be a centralised body that will deal with campaigns and ticket distribution for elections the Congress fights across the country. Apart from these, a political affairs committee will also be formed in all states.
Hitting out at the BJP, he said that an attempt was being made to “replace Babasaheb’s (B.R. Ambedkar) constitution with the constitution of the Sangh”.
“Let’s tell the people of India that Congress is with them in their struggles and aspirations. Tell them that we are going to be their voice and that we will work for an India that was envisioned by our forefathers who gave their blood and sweat for this great nation,” he said.
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A new beginning
All top leaders of the party — including Rajasthan Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot, Chhattisgarh CM Bhupesh Baghel and Congress leaders Ambika Soni, P. Chidambaram, Maken and Meira Kumar, among others — attended the oath-taking ceremony. Tharoor was among the first leaders to arrive.
Mistry handed over Kharge’s election-winning certificate to him while Venugopal and Maken thanked Sonia Gandhi for her service to the party. Kharge gifted her a framed photograph of her late husband Rajiv Gandhi as a memento.
After the ceremony, all members of the Congress Working Committee (CWC), AICC general secretaries and in-charges tendered their resignation to the new president. Kharge will be making new organisational appointments.
Kharge and Sonia then left the AICC headquarters in the same car.
The nameplate at Sonia’s office in AICC has been replaced with Kharge’s, marking the end of the party’s longest serving president’s tenure.
(Edited by Zinnia Ray Chaudhuri)
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