How much Mallikarjun Kharge be credited for Karnataka's win?

New Delhi: So how much credit for the victory in Karnataka should go to Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge who is from the state?

Party insiders say Kharge is basking in the glow of victory but not gloating about it.

Indicative of his approach is an example from his meeting with a few Congress leaders after the Karnataka victory. When some of the leaders spoke about his individual contribution to the victory, Kharge immediately cut them short saying it was a victory of the party everyone played their role in ensuring that a Congress government is formed in the state.

Party insiders say Kharge knows that real power in Congress lies with the Gandhi family but still he has always tried to rise above from the image of a rubber stamp.

He picked up a war of words with Prime Minister Narendra Modi during the election campaign in Karnataka which shows he has enough confidence in his own abilities to take on a master orator like Modi.

His continuation as the leader of opposition (LoP) in Rajya Sabha despite being elected as the party president is against the oft-repeated principle of one person-one post. But Kharge seems disinclined to leave the post of LoP and the Gandhi family too is playing along by not deciding on his successor immediately.

Kharge also ruled himself out of the race for the post of chief minister of Karnataka in order to rise about the ‘state’ leaders - Siddaramaiah and D K Shivakumar.

It was a prudent decision simply for the fact that if Kharge in the unlikeliest scenario had become the CM, the Gandhi family would have found it difficult to spot his successor as the Congress president.

Political observers say it took three years for the party to get a regular president after Rahul Gandhi left the post following Congress’s comprehensive defeat in the 2019 general elections. The party cannot afford another three years to find a successor for Kharge as president as the next general elections are a little less than a year away now.

The biggest achievement of Kharge as party president, say insiders, is to be accessible to all sections of the party and hence have a constant channel of communication with them which on the contrary is not possible with Rahul Gandhi.

He meets leaders, listens to them, and allows them to vent out their frustrations in order to instil a sense of being ‘heard’ by the party boss.

Those heard know that Kharge has the ear of Rahul Gandhi and their suggestions and frustrations will reach him finally. This channel of communication had totally broken down when Rahul Gandhi left the post of party president and remained inaccessible to a large extent.

Kharge now gets a constant stream of visitors in the party office and his accessibility has become a shield for Rahul Gandhi who seems to be focusing on finding a “connect” with the masses, leaving the responsibility of running party apparatus on Kharge.

The arrangement is suitable for both as Gandhi knows Kharge will not become a parallel power centre within the party and will be content to play the role of true family loyalist and Kharge in return gets an enhanced stature within the party.

But it is yet to be seen whether the Kharge-Rahul equation will become as effective as the Sonia-Manmohan equation was. And to get an answer to the question, Congress will have to grab power again.