Kharge resigns as Leader of Oppn in Rajya Sabha
New Delhi: Senior Congress leader Mallikarjun Kharge has resigned as the Leader of Opposition in Rajya Sabha, sources said on Saturday, a day after he filed his nomination papers for the AICC president's election.
Kharge's resignation, which the 80-year-old leader sent to Congress president Sonia Gandhi on Friday night, is in line with the party's declared 'One person, One post' principle that was announced at the Udaipur 'Chintan Shivir' in May.
Senior leaders P Chidambaram and Digvijaya Singh are learnt to be the front-runners to take on the mantle of Leader of Opposition in Rajya Sabha. Pramod Tiwari is also said to be in the running for the post, sources said.
The stage was set on Friday for a contest between Kharge and Shashi Tharoor for the Congress president's post. Kharge, a Dalit leader from Karnataka, has emerged as the clear favourite. The nomination of K N Tripathi, a former Jharkhand minister, has been rejected.
Kharge, Tharoor and Tripathi filed nominations on the last day of the process which saw the AICC headquarters come back to life after a long time, with workers swarming the complex.
Kharge, flanked by top Congress leaders, had filed 14 sets of nomination papers with the proposers, including Ashok Gehlot, Digvijaya Singh, A K Antony, Ambika Soni, Mukul Wasnik and members from the G-23 ginger group comprising Anand Sharma, Bhupinder Hooda, Prithviraj Chavan and Manish Tewari.
Meanwhile, Tharoor kickstarted his campaign, paying tribute at Deekshabhoomi in Nagpur, where BR Ambedkar converted to Buddhism along with his followers in 1956.
His proposers include four MPs — Karti Chidambaram, Pradyut Bordoloi, M K Raghavan and Mohammad Jawed — and party veteran Mohsina Kidwai and former MP and G-23 leader Sandeep Dikshit, besides senior leader and former union minister Saifuddin Soz and his son Salman.
From his home state of Kerala, he got the backing of Thampanoor Ravi and state Youth Congress vice-president and former legislator K S Sabarinath.
"I present my 60 nominees. 12 states, all levels of leadership but all proud @INCIndia workers. I thank them & the thousands of workers they represent for the faith they have placed in me. Thanks, my Parliamentary colleagues, for your unwavering support," Tharoor tweeted.
While Tharoor is portraying himself as the candidate for change — his poll slogan is "Think tomorrow, think Tharoor" — he came under criticism from senior Congress leader Salman Khurshid, who was one of the proposers in Kharge's nomination papers.
