Mallikarjun Kharge to take charge as Congress President on Oct 26

The invites to the event include members of the Congress Working Committee, state Congress presidents, Congress legislative party leaders, MPs, office bearers, as well as former Chief Ministers, and ministers.

For the first time in 24 years, the country's primary opposition party Congress found its non-Gandhi president in the form of 80-year-old Rajya Sabha MP from Karnataka, Mallikarjun Kharge, who won the inner-party elections for the top post on Wednesday.

Kharge, who is set to become the 98th Congress president succeeding parliamentarian Sonia Gandhi, won the elections over erudite Thiruvananthapuram MP Shashi Tharoor by a huge margin.

The president-elect has got 7,897 as opposed to Tharoor's mere 1,072, paving the way to become the second Dalit chief after Jagjivan Ram of the country's oldest political party.

At his first press conference after being elected, Kharge said inflation, severe unemployment, the gap between the rich and the poor, and the hatred spread by the government in the country are some of the main issues that need to be addressed.

He also gave a message for "unity" to take on Prime Minister Narendra Modi's Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) which has led the Congress to the brink of elimination in the political map.