Bellary, Karnataka: He has been crisscrossing the country every day to reach out to Pradesh Congress Committee (PCC) delegates and is showing no signs of that stress on his 80-year-old self.
It is not yet 9 am in Bellary but Mallikarjun Kharge is already in his crisp white dhoti kurta, patiently meeting people while waiting for his breakfast at the new government guest house. On a table in front of him is a list of Congress leaders he will be sharing the stage with later in the day at the big Bharat Jodo Yatra rally at the Bellary Municipal Grounds — a stone’s throw from the guest house.
On the road outside, enthusiastic Congress workers are already assembling with publicity material in tempos and trucks ahead of the Congress show of strength in what was once its bastion until that supremacy was challenged by the Reddy brothers — Janardhan and Sriramulu — of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).
“My main message as a presidential candidate is that I will concentrate on the restructuring of the party and the organisation. The declaration from the Udaipur Chintan shivir is my manifesto. It is just four months old so you cannot really say it is old. There were provisions for 6-7 committees, and the declaration was arrived at by delegates and experts in those fields,” Kharge told ThePrint in an exclusive interview.
He describes himself as a “people’s candidate”, somebody who entered the fray because there was a demand from PCC delegates. That is why, he says,response has been great during his campaign. “I am sponsored by PCC delegates that is why the response has been great,” he adds.
The Rajya Sabha MP has been in the Bharat Jodo Yatra twice before —first when it was flagged off from Kanyakumari on 7 September and then in Tumkur when Congress president Sonia Gandhi briefly joined the rally on 9 October. But the Bellary rally will be his first appearance at a meeting with top Congress leaders as the man who is all but certain to be the next president of the party. The mining city is plastered with publicity material and hoardings welcoming Rahul Gandhi.
‘Yatra will benefit Congress in Karnataka’
The response to the yatra, Kharge says, has been “excellent”. “Lakhs gather to hear him [Rahul]. Where else do you see such public enthusiasm? Also to walk over 3,500 km is not a matter of joke. Today a third of that is completed — about 1,000 km. You have to understand that the purpose of the yatra is not elections. There are no elections in Kerala and Tamil Nadu. It is to connect with the people. It is a matter of ideology, about protecting the Constitution. Look at what the BJP-RSS is doing to elected governments. It is about fostering unity in the country.”
Even while asserting that the yatra has no connection to polls, Kharge is conscious that elections in his own home state, Karnataka, through which it is now passing, are due in six months. “It will benefit Congress naturally in Karnataka but look at what the Karnataka government is doing. There is too much corruption, no law and order. They are creating problems just to polarise to win votes,” he says.
‘Young, good friend Tharoor’
The Congress veteran has in the past rued the fact that his plea to Shashi Tharoor, his opponent in the polls, to go for consensus instead of an election had not elicited the desired results. But two days to the elections, he is not in a mood to talk much about Tharoor.
“He is my young, good friend,” he says of the 66-year-old Lok Sabha MP. “It is not like this is the US presidential elections or the general elections. This is our own friendly fight, all within the family,” he says.
A few days back, photos of him travelling in a chartered flight had caused some ripples. Kharge is dismissive. “Everyone uses those. Anyway we have been mostly travelling in commercial flights. It’s only when a destination is not easily reachable that we have used chartered flights,” he says.
(Edited by Tony Rai)
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