Do we like Mallikarjun Kharge?
Our score: 7 out of 10. A decent, hard-won record with a habit of sharp rhetoric and one land row that ended in a surrender, plus a gap on LGBTQ+ issues.
Kharge was born into a Dalit family in Varawatti village in Bidar, then under the Nizam of Hyderabad. He says that in 1948 Razakars set the family home on fire, and his mother, brother, sister and uncle died. He and his father then moved to Gulbarga, where his father worked as a mill labourer and pushed him to study.
He graduated in law in 1967 and went on to a long career in Congress. He now leads the party, and in a 2024 interview with The Week he described himself as “an untouchable leader”. That background is the key to him: he talks about the Constitution as something that protects people like him.
On the harm test, his own record is mostly rhetoric, not policy against any group. In April 2026 the BJP alleged he called Gujaratis illiterate at a Kerala rally. He wrote that his remarks were “deliberately misinterpreted” and that he never meant to hurt Gujarat. At an Assam rally his “poisonous snake” metaphor for his opponents also drew BJP condemnation. We found nothing from him on LGBTQ+ or trans rights, so that is a gap, not a pass.
The latest row is from 25 October in Patna. Reports say he answered a heckler by saying Modi's father would go too, and the BJP called the language that of goons and mafias. No apology or clarification from Kharge was reported. Weeks earlier, he told the Rajya Sabha that a purification ritual was performed on his Haldwani stage. BJP president J.P. Nadda called it regrettable and promised a probe, and no findings had been reported.
In 2024, a social activist and opposition leaders alleged that a five-acre allotment to a trust linked to his family near Bengaluru broke the rules. BJP MP Lahar Singh Siroya called it illegal, and the Governor asked the state for a report. The trust said it received no subsidy, called the row politically motivated, and surrendered the land. We found no report of any finding against Kharge himself.
Fact-checkers have also defended him. NewsMeter found that a viral clip made to sound as if he threatened Hindus was edited, and that he was quoting Modi's accusations against Congress. As Rajya Sabha opposition leader he said he would not oppose the government “just for the sake of opposition”. His record on that is mixed, given the Patna remark.