New Delhi: Celebrations broke out at veteran Congress leader Mallikarjun Kharge’s home district Kalaburagi after the long-time loyalist of the Gandhi family was elected as the party’s 98th president on Wednesday. Kalaburagi, earlier known as Gulbarga, is the home district of Mallikarjun Kharge.


The joyous celebrations captured in a video show Congress workers holding a big poster of the Congress leader on the road and pouring milk and turmeric on it. The excited workers also expressed their happiness by showering him with flowers. Workers also burst crackers and beat drums to celebrate the win of the Congress veteran.


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Kharge was elected to the Karnataka assembly nine times consecutively and shot into limelight of national politics after his win to the Lok Sabha from Gulbarga in 2009. He also won from the constituency in 2014.


The grand poster of the leader in the video also has photographs of Sonia Gandhi, the longest-serving party president whom Kharge will replace.  Addressing a press conference on Wednesday, Kharge said all karyakartas of the party need to work together to strengthen the Congress.






"We all have to work like workers of the party, nobody is big or small in the party. We have to unitedly fight against the fascist forces that are attacking the democratic institutions under the garb of communalism," Kharge said, as reported by ANI.


Kharge, the former Leader of Opposition in the Rajya Sabha, pipped his collegue Shashi Tharoor to become the next president of the grand old party. Kharge won the Congress presidential polls by over 6,500 votes to give the party its first non-Gandhi president in 24 years. He becomes the second Dalit president of the Congress after Jagjivan Ram, who became the chief after the party's split in 1969.


This is perhaps the most important post the octogenarian Dalit leader will hold in his political career after he missed three opportunities previously to become the chief minister of Karnataka. Mallikarjun Kharge became the first non-Gandhi senior leader to hold the Presidential post of the Congress in the last 24 years.


Mallikarjun Kharge will formally take charge as Congress president on October 26.