Vijayapura, Karnataka – On Sunday, July 27, 2025, Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge publicly said that he was unhappy that he was not picked as the Chief Minister of Karnataka in 1999, even though he had done a lot to help the party get back into power. Kharge spoke at a poll rally in Vijayapura and said that SM Krishna, who had just joined the Congress party a few months before the election win, was handed the top job instead.
I ran for the Leader of the Opposition in the 1999 assembly elections. Media quoted Kharge as saying at the occasion, “SM Krishna, who joined the party four months earlier, was made the chief minister.” “I tried to get the party in power, but SM Krishna became the CM,” he said with a hint of sadness. My services went to waste…
From 1999 to 2004, SM Krishna was the Chief Minister of Karnataka for a complete term. The Congress party won the 1999 Assembly elections by a large margin, taking 132 of the 224 seats. The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), led by BS Yeddyurappa at the time, won 44 seats. The Janata Dal (United) won 18 seats, while the Janata Dal (Secular) won 10 seats, among others.
Even though he wasn’t chosen for the top job, Kharge remained to be an important part of the Congress leadership in Karnataka. He was a minister in SM Krishna’s Cabinet and in the Cabinets of several Congress chief ministers in the state after that. He was a state minister until 2009, when he ran for and won a seat in the Lok Sabha, which was his first step into national politics.
Kharge was in charge of a number of important departments in the Union Cabinet. He was the Minister of Labor and Employment and then the Union Minister of Railways and Social Justice and Empowerment. His long and successful career kept getting better.
At the age of 78, Kharge was elected to the Rajya Sabha from Karnataka in 2020, which made him even more important in national politics. In 2021, he was named Leader of the Opposition in the Rajya Sabha, which showed how experienced and respected he was in the party.
In 2022, he became the President of the Indian National Congress, which was a big step forward in his political career. He beat Thiruvananthapuram MP Shashi Tharoor in a closely watched race. This win was especially important because Kharge became the first person not from the Gandhi family to lead the Congress party in 24 years. He took over from Sonia Gandhi, who was the party’s longest-serving president.