On Wednesday, The Congress party elected its first Non-Nehru-Gandhi Family Leader, Kharge secured nearly 8,000 votes in the presidential election, while Tharoor finished at 1,072 votes.

INC has conducted presidential elections for the first time in over 20 years, and Kharge is likely to be the first Non-Gandhi leader. The last election for INC president occurred in 2000, in which Sonia Gandhi bagged 99 per cent of the votes.

Kharge was the former minister of railways (served from June 2013-May 2014) and minister of labour and employment (from May 2009-June to 2013) during the Manmohan Singh government.

Mallikarjun Kharge is a senior Karnataka politician and served as the Karnataka Pradesh Congress Committee (KPCC) president during the 2008 state assembly elections. During 2014-19, he was the leader of the Congress in the Lok Sabha. Mallikarjun Kharge wins the Congress presidential election with 7,800 votes.

Kharge is called ‘solilada sardara’, a warrior who knows no defeat because of his ten consecutive wins in Assembly elections. Kharge contested twelve elections (in both the assemblies and Lok Sabha) and lost only one in 2019 by a margin of 95,452 votes.

In a press conference, Rahul Gandhi announced Kharge as the winner even before the poll results were out. After S Nijalingappa, Kharge is the second INC president from Karnataka. Also, he is the second Dalit Congress chief after Jagjivan Ram.