At the Congress headquarters, where party supremo Mallikarjun Kharge is to formally take over as Congress president today, preparations were underway for a ceremony where interim party chief Sonia Gandhi will hand over the certificate of election and the baton. Mallikarjun Kharge, the first non-Gandhi to head the Grand Old Party in 24 years, defeated Thiruvananthapuram MP Shashi Tharoor in a straight fight for the party’s top post after the Gandhis withdrew from the race and after Ashok Gehlot also withdrew from the fray following the fiasco.
Before taking over, Kharge called on former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh at his residence and spent some time with him. Kharge paid homage to Mahatma Gandhi at Rajghat and also visited the memorial of former Prime Minister Indira Gandhi. Congress central election body chairman Madhusudan Mistry will formally hand over the election certificate to Kharge at a function that will also be attended by outgoing chief Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi.
Mallikarjun Kharge, 80, who was elected the party’s first non-Gandhi chief on October 19 after the tenure of Sitaram Kesari (1996-1998), has enjoyed many successful seasons as a politician, but his life’s struggle began at the young age of seven. . Kharge lost his mother and sister in a fire started by the Razakars or the private militia of the Nizam of Hyderabad, while he himself had a narrow escape.
The tragic event that happened in 1948 was not revealed until recently. The Razakars went on rampages, looting and attacking houses throughout the region then called Hyderabad State. Bhalki, in the present-day Bidar district of Karnataka, like several other villages as far as Maharashtra, was under siege.