Mallikarjun Kharge Unlikely to Contest Lok Sabha Polls, Paves Way for Son-in-law Radhakrishna Doddamani

Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge may not participate in the forthcoming Lok Sabha elections, the party announced that his son-in-law, Radhakrishna Doddamani, will be contesting from Gulbarga, Kharge's hometown. The octogenarian emerged victorious in the Lok Sabha elections from the Gulbarga (Kalaburagi) constituency in both 2009 and 2014. However, he faced defeat in the electoral contest of 2019.

Kharge’s hands are full. In addition to managing party affairs at the national level, he has to coordinate with the INDIA bloc partners. Also, his term in the Rajya Sabha is not yet over, a senior Congress leader said.

The Congress president's son, Priyank Kharge, who currently serves as a minister in the Karnataka government and represents the Chittapur Assembly constituency in Gulbarga, has shown no interest in entering the electoral fray. Therefore, according to party sources, Radhakrishna Doddamani emerged as the natural choice for candidacy.

Sources indicate that the final decision regarding candidacy was made by the Congress president himself. Doddamani, a businessman with involvement in managing educational institutions, was reportedly hesitant initially to enter the electoral arena but eventually relented.

Born in Kalaburagi, Doddamani has kept a low profile, primarily focusing on behind-the-scenes work in managing and strategizing Mallikarjun Kharge's successive electoral campaigns.

He is said to be popular among the Congress workers and supporters, especially in the Gurmitkal Assembly segment, which Kharge represented consecutively between 1972 and 2004. Kharge was defeated by the BJP’s Umesh Jadhav by a margin of 95,452 votes in the 2019 Lok Sabha polls.

Popularly known as Solillada Saradara (a leader who hasn’t faced a defeat), that was the first electoral loss in Kharge’s political life spanning several decades.