India’s Congress party elects first non-Gandhi head in 24 years in attempt to revive once-mighty reputation
- Mallikarjun Kharge is to replace Sonia Gandhi as president of the once-mighty party that helped win India’s independence 75 years ago
- Congress governed India for decades, but was discredited and crushed under the electoral juggernaut of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s BJP
India’s main opposition Congress party appointed on Wednesday its first leader who is not from the Gandhi dynasty for the first time in 24 years in an effort to reverse its slow decline, local media reports said.
Former minister Mallikarjun Kharge, 80, was elected by members to replace Sonia Gandhi as president of the once-mighty party that helped win India’s independence 75 years ago, the reports said.
Congress governed India for decades after independence from Britain in 1947, but is now a shadow of its former self, discredited and crushed under the electoral juggernaut of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).
The Gandhi family is not related to India’s independence icon Mahatma Gandhi but descended from the country’s first prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru.
Nehru was the father of prime minister Indira Gandhi, assassinated in 1984. She was the mother of Rajiv Gandhi, killed by a suicide bomber in 1991.
The BJP thrashed Congress at the last two elections, with Modi deriding Rahul Gandhi – son of Rajiv and Sonia – as an out-of-touch princeling and playboy.
