Mallikarjun Kharge was crowned in the presence of Sonia-Rahul, took over as the President at AICC Headquarters

Jaipur. Newly elected National President of Congress Mallikarjun Kharge was crowned at the AICC headquarters on Wednesday in the presence of several top leaders including outgoing Congress President Sonia Gandhi, and former President Rahul Gandhi. For the first time in nearly two decades, a non-Gandhi family has elected a national president. Earlier, Sitaram Kesari was the non-Gandhi president.

Earlier, outgoing Congress president Sonia Gandhi, former president Rahul Gandhi and the party's election authority chairman Madhusudan Mistry welcomed Mallikarjun Kharge by presenting him with a bouquet. After this Madhusudan Mistry gave him the certificate for winning the election and said that there is internal democracy in the Congress party. This time more than 6 crore memberships have taken place in our party, and 2.5 crore people have taken digital membership.

The big thing is that apart from Sonia Gandhi, Rahul Gandhi, KC Venugopal and Madhusudan Mistry, no other leader could find a place on the stage made for the taking over of Mallikarjun Kharge. For the rest of the leaders, chairs were set up in front of the stage. Senior leaders, CWC members, Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot, Chhattisgarh Chief Minister Bhupesh Baghel and many other leaders were given a place in the front line.

Earlier on Wednesday morning, Mallikarjun Kharge first reached the tomb of the Father of the Nation Mahatma Gandhi and paid tribute. After this, he also paid floral tributes and bowed to the samadhi of former Prime Minister Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru, Indira Gandhi, Rajiv Gandhi and Babu Jagjivan Ram.

Rajasthan Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot, State Congress President Govind Singh Dotasra, Cabinet Minister Lalchand Kataria, Former Minister Raghu Sharma, Harish Chaudhary, AICC Secretary Dheeraj Gurjar, Kuldeep Indora, Working Committee member Raghuveer Meena and Party's National General Secretary Bhanwar Jitendra Singh also attended the ceremony.

Earlier, Congress President Sonia Gandhi while addressing on the stage said that Mallikarjun Kharge has long experience in politics and his experience will be useful for the party. Sonia Gandhi said that change is the rule of the world.

At the same time, the interesting thing is that with Mallikarjun Kharge taking over as the national president, a big challenge will be in front of him in the Himachal Pradesh and Gujarat assembly elections, where he will be tested. Along with this, the factionalism spread in the party and how to bring the party to power in the assembly elections to be held in 2024 will prove to be a big challenge for them.