A press interaction in Tamil Nadu, meant to project Congress’s electoral messaging ahead of the state Assembly elections, turned into an uncomfortable moment of reckoning for Congress President Mallikarjun Kharge when a woman journalist posed a pointed and data-backed question – one that Kharge spectacularly failed to answer.
The Question That Hit Home
The journalist’s question was simple, factual, and devastating: BJP has fielded five women candidates in the constituency, Congress only two. If Congress is the champion of women’s empowerment, why does its action not match its words?
It was not a rhetorical trap. It was a straightforward accountability question about the present, about what Congress is doing right now, under current leadership, in the ongoing election.
Kharge’s response was a masterclass in evasion. Here’s what he said, verbatim, “No, we see Congress party always gave importance for women. Our party leader is a woman. Our founder is a woman. The first Congress president Sarojini Naidu is a woman. The first Prime Minister, Indira Gandhi ji, is a woman. Our party built up from scratch and brought to power the UPA government. Srimati Sonia Gandhi ji is our leader. She is a woman. So our party need not learn from others. We have given. Show me any RSS people – have they given any important post for women, or even in their party? Whatever Modi picks up, only such people will get something; otherwise, nothing. So we are for that. We’ll fight – wherever mistakes are there, we’ll rectify it.”
Long Live Press Freedom,
As the voice of journalists—the fourth pillar of democracy—a woman journalist today asks a question to All India Congress Committee President Mallikarjun Kharge:
Journalist’s Question: Congress always talks about women’s progress and women’s rights. You… pic.twitter.com/sPjUOyB86K
— M. Hazeena Syed (@SyedHazeena) April 21, 2026
A History Lesson Nobody Asked For
Instead of addressing the present, why Congress has fewer women candidates than BJP in this election, Kharge launched into a history lecture spanning decades:
“Our party leader is a woman” – Kharge himself is the Congress President. Which woman is he referring to? The party’s current president is a man, himself.
“Our founder is a woman” – This is factually incorrect. The Indian National Congress was founded in 1885 by A.O. Hume, a British civil servant, along with Dadabhai Naoroji and Dinshaw Wacha – none of them women.
Sarojini Naidu – He correctly notes she was the first woman Congress president, but that was in 1925, a century ago.
Indira Gandhi – She was indeed India’s first woman Prime Minister, but she served from 1966 to 1984. That is not Kharge’s achievement.
Sonia Gandhi – She led the UPA coalition and is widely credited with reviving the party, but again, this is a Gandhi family legacy, not Kharge’s.
Every woman achievement Kharge cited belongs to the Gandhi era, not to his own tenure as party president since October 2022. The journalist’s question was specifically about what Congress is doing today, in this election, under his watch. Kharge answered by pointing to what others did, decades before him.
RSS vs BJP: A Classic Diversion Tactic
When cornered on BJP’s track record, Kharge pivoted to the RSS – an entirely different organisation. He asked: “Has the RSS given any important post to women?”
But the journalist asked about BJP, not the RSS. And the BJP’s record on women in positions of power in Tamil Nadu alone is hard to ignore:
- Nirmala Sitharaman – Finance Minister of India, one of the most powerful Cabinet posts in the country, hails from Tamil Nadu
- Tamilisai Soundararajan – Former Governor and a senior BJP leader from Tamil Nadu
- Vanathi Srinivasan – President of BJP Tamil Nadu Women’s Wing and a prominent state leader
By deflecting to the RSS, Kharge avoided answering for BJP’s actual record – a record that, inconveniently, has more recent and more powerful examples of women in leadership than what Kharge cited for Congress.
The Conscience Moment: “We Will Rectify”
At the very end of his response, Kharge added: “Wherever mistakes are there, we’ll rectify it.”
This was a telling admission. After spending his entire answer claiming Congress has always been a champion of women, he conceded there are “mistakes” to rectify. It was the kind of afterthought that exposes the contradiction at the heart of his entire answer – if Congress has always stood for women, why are there mistakes to correct in the first place?
The Bigger Accountability Question
The journalist’s question was not merely about candidate count. It reflected a deeper frustration felt by many Congress workers, particularly women, on the ground in Tamil Nadu. Under the current Congress leadership of TNCC President K. Selvaperunthagai, internal party decisions have been widely criticised as unilateral and exclusionary. Workers allege that the roles of Kharge, Priyank Kharge, K.C. Venugopal, Girish Chodankar, and Nivedith Alva in TNCC’s functioning have left genuine, long-serving party workers, especially women, sidelined, their sacrifices unrecognised, and their careers in ruins.
The very Congress that lectures on women empowerment from public stages has, according to these workers, reduced women to props in election rhetoric while making decisions that harm them behind closed doors.
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