Veteran leader Mallikarjun Kharge formally took over as Congress president on Wednesday after he was handed over the certificate of election to the top post at a function at the AICC headquarters here.

Kharge, the first non-Gandhi to head the party in 24 years, had defeated Thiruvananthapuram MP Shashi Tharoor in a direct contest for the president’s post in the grand old party after the Gandhis opted out of the race.

Kharge was handed over the certificate of election as the Congress president by the party’s central election authority chairman Madhusudan Mistry.

Mistry said he hopes other parties will draw a lesson from the Congress and hold polls for party presidency by secret ballot.

Outgoing Congress president Sonia Gandhi, former chief Rahul Gandhi and AICC general secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra were also present at the event which was attended by several top party leaders.

Ahead of his taking over, Kharge visited Rajghat and paid homage to Mahatma Gandhi. He also visited the memorials of former prime ministers Jawaharlal Nehru, Lal Bahadur Shastri, Indira Gandhi and former deputy prime minister Jagjivan Ram, and paid tributes to the leaders.

Paid my humble tributes to Bapu, Nehru Ji, Shastri Ji, Babu Ji, Indira Ji and Rajiv Ji before taking charge as the @INCIndia President today.

We must always remember their vision of a sovereign secular democratic republic and devote our lives to realise the India of their dreams pic.twitter.com/TIicE24hkL

— Mallikarjun Kharge (@kharge) October 26, 2022

The Congress faces many challenges but with unity and strength it will move forward to tackle them as it has done before, outgoing party chief Sonia Gandhi said at the event.

She said it is her biggest satisfaction that the new Congress president is very experienced and has risen from being an ordinary worker to such heights through his hardwork.

Gandhi said she did her duty as Congress president to the best of her ability and was feeling relieved as she would now be free from this responsibility.

The Congress faces many challenges but with full strength and unity “we have to move forward and succeed” she said.

Credit: @INCIndia/Twitter

Kharge, 80, takes charge of the party at a time when it faces a tough challenge from a formidable BJP led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi which has ousted the Congress from many states.

For Kharge, who has served as a leader of the opposition in the Karnataka Assembly, leader of Congress in Lok Sabha and leader of the opposition in Rajya Sabha, the current assignment comes at a time when the party is at a historic low, electorally.

With the Congress now remaining in power in only two states – Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh – on its own and as a junior partner in Jharkhand, Kharge’s first challenge is to bring the party to power in Himachal Pradesh and Gujarat, which go to polls in the next few weeks.

Assembly elections in Himachal Pradesh will be held on 12 November. The dates for the Gujarat polls are yet to be announced.

In 2023, Kharge will face the onerous task of leading the Congress in nine assembly elections, including in his home state of Karnataka where he was an MLA for nine terms.

Kharge’s election also comes at a time the party is reeling under internal rumblings and high-profile exits after a series of electoral debacles and has been reduced to a shadow of its former formidable self.

Read more: More experienced Kharge beats Tharoor, to become Congress President

Beginning his career as chief of the Gulbarga city council, Kharge has also served as a state minister and a Lok Sabha MP from Gulbarga (2009 and 2014).

The old warhorse is well-known for not losing an election barring the 2019 Lok Sabha poll from Gulbarga.

It was after that loss that Sonia Gandhi brought him to Rajya Sabha and in February 2021 made him the leader of the opposition.

Kharge also faces the challenge of restoring the Congress’ primacy in the opposition space, implementing radical reforms the party pledged at the mid-May ‘Chintan Shivir’ in Udaipur and maintaining his independence in the face of insinuations that he is a candidate of the Gandhis and would seek their approval in all decisions.

The last non-Gandhi Congress president was Sitaram Kesri, who was unceremoniously removed in 1998 just after two years into his five-year term.

A leader with more than 50 years of experience in politics, Kharge is also the second All India Congress Committee (AICC) president from Karnataka after S Nijalingappa and also the second Dalit leader after Jagjivan Ram to hold the post.