Congress nominates Mallikarjun Kharge as next Leader of Opposition in Rajya Sabha

February 12, 2021

BENGALURU: Senior leader Mallikarjun Kharge has been nominated leader of the Congress in the Rajya Sabha and will take over as leader of opposition in the House on Monday when veteran Ghulam Nabi Azad retires.
It will be historic because no person has served as leader of opposition in both the Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha until now.
He served as leader of opposition in the Lok Sabha during Narendra Modi 1.0 and now during Narendra Modi 2.0 he gets to serve as leader of opposition in the Rajya Sabha.
It may be recalled that in the 2019 parliamentary election Kharge was defeated in his own constituency Gulbarga by Dr Umesh Jadhav who moved out from Kharge’s camp in the Congress to join the BJP. He then entered the Rajya Sabha from Karnataka.

Kharge who has been member of the legislative assembly for nine terms and member of the Lok Sabha for two terms is easily one of Congress’ tallest leaders having served as minister both in the state and Centre, PCC president, opposition leader among other positions. He is the first Dalit to be leader of the opposition in the Rajya Sabha.
Kharge is fluent in Marathi in addition to Kannada and had served as General Secretary in charge of Maharashtra and helped in setting up the three party coalition of Congress, NCP and Shiv Sena in the state.