On the day Congress leader Rahul Gandhi was protesting in the streets of Delhi, belligerently raising the public issue of ‘vote chori’, Congressmen in Lucknow publicly exchanged blows, seemingly over organisational changes, at the party headquarters. That their leader was being battered and bruised did not worry them. Nor did the fact that the crucial assembly elections are coming up and the party’s prospects remained seemingly dismal.
Watching with dismay were senior Congress leaders, including the party deputy leader in the Rajya Sabha, Pramod Tiwari, and his MLA daughter, Aradhana Mishra, the newly elected Uttar Pradesh Congress Committee (UPCC) president. It was her first day in office.
Significantly, the scuffle involved the outgoing firebrand president Ajay Rai and a lesser-known woman corporator. The ugly scenes in the party office literally threw cold water on the hard work of their leader, whose various street strategies have evoked hopes but have yet to generate votes – remember, Congress has lost Bihar and UP looks distant. The reasons are many, including the image of a naïve politician the BJP has built of Rahul Gandhi
Gandhi’s public image has perceptibly improved, even though Modi supporters lose no opportunity to ridicule him for his political naivety. The old narrative that started from the times of the country's first prime minister, ‘After Nehru, who?’ or the perennial TINA (There Is No Alternative), remains in the air in favour of Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
But can the Congress or its cadre in Uttar Pradesh amplify his combative mood or remain bogged down with internecine troubles? Infighting is not new to Congress; rather, it persists in every political party from top to bottom.
Congress' history of infighting
Old Congressmen recall the days of Kamlapati Tripathi vs Chandra Bhanu Gupta who despite their internal rivalry often cooperated strategically to engineer the downfall of their common rival like Sampurnanand. Later, the party infighting took a caste hue with the emergence of Rajput leadership in the 1980s and for several decades, it remained infested with a Brahmin vs Rajput one-upmanship war.
Sanjay Singh, the titular Raja of Amethi, was tipped to be the chief minister in 1980, but after much celebration, he was dropped in favour of another Rajput Vishwanath Pratap Singh, who went on to become India’s seventh prime minister. Singh launched both the Bofors campaign against Rajiv Gandhi and the Mandal initiative, granting quotas for the OBCs.
Congress leaders fought with each other -- Kamlapati Tripathi’s family from Varanasi vs Vir Bahadur Singh from Gorakhpur, ND Tiwari vs Vir Bahadur Singh, et al. Even Sripati Mishra, who replaced Vishwanath Pratap Singh in 1982, faced furious dissidence during his three-year tenure.
While they were stalwarts who were remote-controlled by Delhi, here a corporator was taking on an outgoing state chief of the party, Ajay Rai, who, irrespective of his temperament, had travelled the state extensively to galvanise the party. He not only gave a spirited fight against the country's PM in the Varanasi Lok Sabha constituency in 2024, but the party's overall tally also improved under his leadership.
The organisational changes in the Congress, made on the eve of elections, were also apparently triggered by the infighting that continues to plague the party.
The former AICC general secretary in charge of UP affairs, Avinash Pandey, and Ajay Rai had teamed up well. But soon after Pandey was replaced by Rajendra Pal Gautam, a prominent Dalit leader, speculation started about Rai's removal.
Rai’s family was in Congress, but he had started his political career in the BJP. He wore a vermilion tikka on his forehead and frequently visited temples. Gautam came from AAP via BSP and visited Sarnath during his trip to Varanasi.
Political experts believe the Congress high command erred by implementing organisational changes just ahead of the elections. Though Rahul Gandhi spoke to Rai before the announcement, Rai perhaps felt humiliated. Undoubtedly, he is a strongman with muscle and money power, but he kept waiting for Delhi to appoint his organisational team.
The soft-spoken, newly appointed chief, Mishra, also needs time to win the party's confidence and galvanise it for the polls. Though her father, Pramod Tiwari, can fix nuts and bolts with his long experience as a nine-time MLA, the time is too short to prepare the party to face a tough battle against the BJP by ensuring basic bonhomie among the cadres of the allies.
Paradoxically, while the state unit needs to replicate its leader's street activism in Lucknow on local and hyperlocal issues, they are engaging in physical altercations, knowing fully well that an opportunity lies ahead to ride their strong poll partner - the Samajwadi Party.
The BJP too is a divided house, and there is anti-incumbency against the 10-year Yogi government, even though CM's personal image has so far remained untarnished.
Gandhi has built an image of a combative leader, but his party here remains in limbo, though sporadic protests have been simultaneously organised in the state. But for a more aggressive approach, the party will have to navigate internal contradictions, besides coordinating with the Samajwadi Party.
As of now, people are comparing Rahul’s aggressive street performance -- including demonstrations, climbing barricades, and facing cops -- with his grandmother Indira Gandhi’s fight against the Janata Party, which had catapulted her to power within three years.
“In the run-up to the January 1980 general elections, Indira spent 62 days on the road (and in the air), covering 40,000 miles and addressing up to twenty meetings a day. An estimated 90 million people -- or one in every four of the Indian electorate -- throughout the country saw and heard Indira Gandhi in the course of her last and most arduous campaign,” writes Katherine Frank in her book Indira: The Life of Indira Nehru Gandhi.
Rahul’s reach is a billion times greater because of social media. She also fought a perception battle -- from ‘gungi gudia’ to the Indian Tigress. He too appears less naïve though many still find his political behaviour erratic and immature. However, perhaps the fight over INDIA leadership has been settled for now.
He is leading from the front, but the state cadre will have to follow suit to position Congress as an active and visible opposition force. Scuffles will derail the momentum he has been consistently building through public shows—from Bharat Jodo Yatra to Delhi protests and Chhatron Ki Goonj.
Though experts believe Gandhi is focusing on the 2029 general elections, it is 2027, and also UP, that will decide the fate of the party as well as its leader, who has been consistently on a warpath against the ruling dispensation.