Mallikarjun Kharge quits as Rajya Sabha Leader of Opposition

A day after filing his nomination for the election for the party presidential post, Congress leader Mallikarjun Kharge on Saturday resigned as the Leader of Opposition (LoP) in Rajya Sabha, as per the sources. He met Congress president Sonia Gandhi and submitted his resignation letter in line with the one person, following the Udaipur Resolution of One Leader One Post adopted by the party.

Sonia, the chairperson of the Congress parliamentary party, will now appoint a new leader and convey the decision to the Rajya Sabha Chairman.

The question now is who will succeed Kharge as the Leader of Opposition in the Rajya Sabha. With Kharge, who is from south India, looking set to become the party president and the party already has Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury as its leader in Lok Sabha, it could be looking at a person from the Hindi belt as the Leader of Opposition in the Upper House to balance regional equations.  P Chidambaram and Digvijay Singh are in the race to succeed Kharge as the LoP.

On Friday, Mallikarjun Kharge, Shashi Tharoor, and KN Tripathi filed their nominations for the Congress presidential polls. However, G-23 leaders Prithiviraj Chavan, Manish Tewari, and Bhupinder Hooda have said they will back Mallikarjun Kharge’s candidacy for the party’s president post.

Meanwhile, Digvijaya Singh, who was earlier in the race for the Congress top post, announced that he will not contest the party president’s election and would instead propose the candidature of his senior Mallikarjun Kharge.