New Congress chief Mallikarjun Kharge’s controversies: Murmu seating row to assets allegedly worth Rs 50,000 cr

New Delhi: Mallikarjun Kharge has defeated former Union Minister and his party colleague Shashi Tharoor to be the Congress President in a “friendly fight”. First time in 24 years the party has got a non-Gandhi president. But, even the new Congress president’s probity is not beyond questions.

Firstpost looks at the recent controversies besotting the new Congress chief Mallikarjuna Kharge.

1 – Disproportionate assets case worth Rs 50,000 crore

In 2014, a Lokayukta complaint was lodged against Kharge alleging that he owned assets worth Rs 50,000 crore which were disproportionate to his known sources of income.

According to Karnataka BJP, the charges against the newly-elected Congress chief include:

– illegal appointments to the posts of 1,427 engineers

– 300-acre coffee plantation in Chikkamagaluru district worth more than Rs 1,000 crore

– a huge complex in Bannerghatta worth Rs 500 crore

– a building near Bengaluru’s M S Ramaiah Medical College worth Rs 25 crore

– a house worth Rs 50 crore in his daughter’s name

– a farmhouse near Kengeri Gate built allegedly on over 40 acres of government land

– 17 acres of land on Bellary Road

– a three-storey building in Indira Nagar and two houses in Sadashivanagar.

You have just left K’taka. If you look in your rear view mirror, @OfficeOfRG you will find your LOP mired in corruption. Your CM destroyed the agency which was investigating these charges. And you unflinchingly support these corrupt leaders! Oh wait, you are just one of them. pic.twitter.com/JR9Besq1qM

— BJP Karnataka (@BJP4Karnataka) February 13, 2018

2 - Kharge quizzed by ED in Rs 5,000-crore National Herald case

Considered to be a Nehru-Gandhi family loyalist, Kharge was active among other leaders to protest Enforcement Directorate (ED) summons to Rahul Gandhi and Sonia Gandhi in June and July.

Later in August, Kharge was summoned by the ED in the alleged Rs 5,000-crore money laundering case linked to the National Herald. He was quizzed for over seven hours a day after the agency partially sealed the offices of Young India Limited, the company that owns Associated Journals.

Notably, Kharge is the authorised representative of the company.

3 - Kharge’s unsavoury remarks against PM Narendra Modi

During the 2019 Karnataka bypoll, Kharge addressed a rally for Congress candidate Subash Rathod who was fielded by the party from the Chincholi Assembly. In his address, he said: "It is you the people sitting here who are going to write the future and fate of this country, it is in your hands to write the fate of Subash and ours, not it their (BJP/PM Modi) hands."

He went on to say, "Wherever (PM Modi) goes, (he) says Congress will not get 40 seats (in Lok Sabha polls). Does any of you agree with this? If we get 40 seats, will (PM) Modi hang himself at Vijay Chowk in Delhi?" the veteran Congress leader said.

For the uninitiated, in the 2014 Lok Sabha polls, the Congress bagged mere 44 seats, while BJP-led NDA secured 282 seats and formed the government, making Narendra Modi the Prime Minister of India.

Demanding apology from Kharge for his statement, Senior BJP leader and MP Shobha Karandlaje has said that she "never expected such low remarks from a senior leader like him."

4 - Mallikarjun Kharge's seating problems

In July, when Droupadi Murmu became the President of India, Kharge, who was then the Leader of Opposition in Rajya Sabha, was invited for her swearing-in ceremony. A controversy was sparked by the Congress claiming that Kharge was not accorded a seat commensurate with his position during the ceremony.

Leaders from the opposition parties, including the Congress, Nationalist Congress Party (NCP), Trinamool Congress (TMC), Shiv Sena, Communist Party of India (CPI), Communist Party of India (Marxist) (CPI(M)) and Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD), signed a letter that they wrote to Rajya Sabha chairman expressing shock at "deliberate disrespect" shown to Kharge.

The government refuted allegations of the opposition parties and said that the LoP Rajya Sabha was given seat in front row at par with Cabinet ministers.

Silencing the opposition's claims, Union Minister Prahlad Joshi had said that there was no violation of protocol in the oath-taking ceremony of the President. "In the order of precedence, leader of opposition is after all Cabinet ministers. Strictly going by that his seat comes in third row. But to respect seniority of Kharge, he was provided seat in first row itself."

The opposition even objected that Kharge was given a seat in corner to which Joshi said that the staff who were present at the event had requested the Congress leader to come to the centre but he refused. The Union Minister also said that at the farewell programme of outgoing President Ram Nath Kovind, Kharge was given the seat next to the Prime Minister, but he didn't attend the event.

"It was an insult to the President also. Today they are making an issue of a non-issue. In spite of order of precedence, we tried to accommodate them in first row. Majority of Cabinet ministers sat in second row," the Union Minister had said.

Mallikarjuna Kharge's journey in Congress

A veteran Congressman, Kharge has been associated with the Congress since 1969, when he was the president of the Gulbarga City Congress Committee.

He was a nine-time MLA from 1972 to 2009 and two-term Lok Sabha MP from 2009 to 2019.

In 2019, he lost the Lok Sabha election and next year in June, he was elected to the Rajya Sabha. In Congress, he has held several top posts including secretary of Karnataka Congress and AICC and Congress Working Committee (CWC) member.

Kharge also served as a Union minister during Manmohan Singh government between 2009 and 2014. He held the portfolios such as labour, employment, railways and social justice.

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