KC Venugopal said Mallikarjun Kharge will not be Karnataka Chief Minister.
KC Venugopal, a senior Congress leader and top aide of Rahul Gandhi, on Sunday, said the party was working on deciding who will be the Chief Minister of Karnataka following the huge election win. He also said it was working on arranging the next iteration of Rahul Gandhi's cross-country foot march and mending the strife between its top leaders in Rajasthan ahead of elections later this year.
"This is a message for opposition unity, and we have to work together at the national level," Mr Venugopal told NDTV a day after the Karnataka election results.
He said that the Congress was open to forming post-poll alliances with other regional parties, even if they had ideological differences or were rivals in some states.
"We can't have an alliance with CPI-M in Kerala or BRS in Telangana, but we can have a post-poll alliance and in some cases pre-poll alliance," he said, referring to the Communist Party of India (Marxist) and the Bharat Rashtra Samithi.
Commenting on speculation about who would be the Chief Minister of Karnataka, saying, "It will take some time, and we will sort it out between DK Shivakumar and Siddaramaiah, who are both Congressmen at heart."
He dismissed any possibility of Congress chief Mallikarjun Kharge being considered for the post.
"No question of Kharge. Don't believe rumours," he said.
He added that the party would also resolve the leadership issue in Rajasthan, where two contenders - Sachin Pilot and Ashok Gehlot - have been ramping up attacks on each other in recent months, just before the state holds elections.
"We will sort it out in Rajasthan between Sachin and Gehlot and in other states," he said.
He said that the party was planning another nationwide campaign to build on the momentum ahead of next year's national election.
"We are planning another Bharat Jodo Yatra from the east to west. We have seen good results in Karnataka," he said, referring to the march that Congress president Rahul Gandhi led from north to south India last year.
The Congress party, which has been struggling to regain its foothold in Indian politics, scored a major victory in Karnataka on Saturday, defeating the ruling BJP by a comfortable margin.
The result was a boost for the opposition alliance, which has been trying to forge a united front against Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his BJP ahead of the national elections next year.