KARNATAKA DOMINATES CONGRESS PLENARY
With the spectre of uncertainty regarding the outcome of the crucial Karnataka Assembly polls looming in his subconscious mind, Congress president Rahul Gandhi on Saturday took pains to place on record the contributions of seniors, while in the same breath urging younger leaders to rise to the occasion and combat divisive and communal forces. Acknowledging the presence of Karnataka Chief Minister Siddaramaiah and Punjab Chief Minister Amarinder Singh, Rahul thanked them for strengthening the party, along with many others including his mother, and UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi and former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.
However, the importance the party was attaching to the Karnataka Assembly polls was evident when the political resolution at the plenary session convened to endorse his elevation as president was moved by Mallikarjun Kharge, leader of the party in the Lok Sabha and a formidable Dalit leader from the state. Generally, the protocol is that the political resolution is moved by the senior-most functionaries, and had that been the criterion, then Ghulam Nabi Azad, Leader of the Opposition in the Rajya Sabha, A.K. Antony, former Defence Minister, Ahmed Patel, erstwhile political secretary to Sonia Gandhi, P. Chidambaram, former Finance Minister, or Kamal Nath, nine times Lok Sabha MP from Chhindwara in Madhya Pradesh would have done so.
All these leaders were amongst those present, but the privilege of speaking about the political blue print was accorded to Kharge, since retaining the government in Karnataka is vital for Rahul to have a good start as the head of the organisation whose footprint on the national map has been gradu- ally receding. If the Congress were to lose Karnataka, a big question mark would hover over the leadership abilities of Rahul Gandhi, who seems to have, otherwise, made a political comeback after the party’s impressive performance in Gujarat.
Kharge, who, in the past, had been critical of the poll preparedness, as well as the manner in which the Siddaramaiah government had been functioning, was handpicked in order to showcase the unity in the state Congress party, as also to send a strong signal to workers that the high command had sorted out, amongst various