Mallikarjun Kharge vs Shashi Tharoor: Why Congress held elections only six times to pick its president

Voting for the much-touted Congress presidential election is underway. Mallikarjun Kharge is facing Shashi Tharoor in the polls that will elect a non-Gandhi party president after 24 years.

Senior leaders including incumbent Congress chief Sonia Gandhi, Priyanka Gandhi Vadra, P Chidambaram and Jairam Ramesh among others cast their vote today (17 October) in the All India Congress Committee (AICC) election.

Rahul Gandhi polled at the ‘Bharat Jodo Yatra’ campsite at Karnataka’s Sanganakallu in Ballari.

The grand old party’s general secretary Jairam Ramesh has hailed the presidential elections as ‘historic’.

#WATCH | Congress interim president Sonia Gandhi & party leader Priyanka Gandhi Vadra cast their vote to elect the new party president, at the AICC office in Delhi pic.twitter.com/aErRUpRVv0

— ANI (@ANI) October 17, 2022

More than 9,000 Pradesh Congress Committee (PCC) delegates, who form the electoral college, will pick the party chief through a secret ballot.

The results of the election will be announced on Wednesday (19 October).

As per media reports, 80-year-old Kharge has an advantage over Tharoor as the former is seen by a section as the ‘unofficial official candidate’ with the backing of many senior Congress leaders.

Tharoor had also raised issues of an ‘uneven playing field’ during his campaigning.

The Congress has claimed its ‘internal democracy’ is unparalleled to other political parties and it is the only one to have a central election authority for organisational polls, as per PTI. 

The polls have come 22 years after the last Congress presidential elections were held when the late Jitendra Prasada challenged Sonia.

When has Congress in its nearly 137-year-old history conducted elections to elect party chief and who were the contestants? Let’s take a look.

Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose vs Pattabhi Sitaramayya

In 1939, Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose had defeated Mahatma Gandhi-backed candidate Pattabhi Sitaramayya in the Congress presidential elections.

As per The Tribune, the late President of India Pranab Mukherjee, who was also a Congress veteran, wrote in his book The Coalition Years about Bose’s victory, “Though Sitaramayya was backed by senior leaders like Gandhiji, Bose was the more popular icon enthusiastically supported by the youth. Subhas Chandra Bose won a massive victory. But it created an awkward situation resulting in Gandhiji insisting that Sitaramayya’s defeat was his own defeat. The ensuing estranged relationship between Gandhiji and Bose in the late 1930s was an unfortunate chapter in the history of the Congress.”

Purushottam Das Tandon vs Acharya Kripalani

Jawaharlal Nehru’s bete noire Purushottam Das Tandon trounced Acharya Kripalani and Shankarrao Deo for the Congress chief post in 1950.

Tandon, viewed as Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel’s loyalist, won by 1,306 votes, while Kripalani bagged 1,092 and Deo got 202 votes, as per Indian Express.

Then Prime Minister Nehru had backed Kripalani as his candidate much to Patel’s discontentment.

Following differences with Nehru, Tandon later resigned from the post and the former Prime Minister replaced him as the party chief and served from 1951 to 1955.

K Brahmananda Reddy vs Siddhartha Shankar Ray and Karan Singh

In 1977, former home minister Kasu Brahmananda Reddy won against former West Bengal chief minister Siddhartha Shankar Ray and Karan Singh in the Congress presidential polls.

Reddy had the backing of Indira Gandhi’s supporters. At the same time, Congress leaders who wanted to keep her away from ‘controlling’ the party’s affairs had rallied behind Ray, as per Indian Express.

Sitaram Kesri vs Sharad Pawar vs Rajesh Pilot

One of the most interesting Congress presidential elections saw Sitaram Kesri defeat heavyweights Sharad Pawar and Rajesh Pilot in 1997.

All state Congress units, except for Maharashtra and parts of Uttar Pradesh, had lent support to Kesri, as per PTI. 

In a landslide victory, he had won 6,224 party delegates’ votes against Pawar’s 882 and Pilot’s 354.

Kesri, the last non-Gandhi AICC president, served at the top post from 1996-98. He was axed as the party chief after the Congress electoral defeat in 1998.

Sonia Gandhi, who had become a primary member of the AICC in 1997, was asked to accept the top post, as per The Tribune. 

Sonia Gandhi vs Jitendra Prasada

In 2000, Jitendra Prasada challenged Sonia Gandhi when the rift against her and her ‘coterie’ was growing among some party leaders.

However, it was not an easy road for Prasada who met with constant resistance from Sonia’s supporters for standing against her.

Moreover, Rajesh Pilot, who had carried on the revolt to seize control of the party from Sonia, died in a car mishap in June 2000, leaving Jitendra Prasada alone to pursue the fight.

Sonia Gandhi easily routed Jitendra Prasada by bagging 7,448 votes against his paltry 94.

This was the last election organised by the Congress.

Gandhi remains the longest-serving party chief with a break in 2017-2019 when her son Rahul assumed the post. But, after the drubbing of the party in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, he resigned as the party president.

Sonia took over as the party chief again and has been the interim president since then.

Notably, post-Independence era, the Gandhi family has been at the helm of the grand old party for about 40 years, as per PTI.

With inputs from agencies

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