The Congress recently undertook a minor reshuffle of its organization, some party general secretaries and state in-charges were dropped and new ones brought in. There is a certain trend that can be seen from the exercise for those close to Rahul Gandhi seem to be getting prominence. Priyanka Gandhi Vadra managed to get in a few of her favourites, the prominent one being Bhupesh Baghel, the former chief minister of Chattisgarh who has been given charge of election bound Punjab; another of her camp followers Ajay Kumar Lallu has been given charge of Bihar (also slated to go to the polls), but she was not able to retain another – Rajiv Shukla who helped her craft the Himachal win. Congress party president Mallikarjun Kharge also managed to get a placement for one of his key aides – Syed Naseer Hussain appointed as general secretary incharge of J&K and Ladakh.
However for the most part it was Team Rahul that was given prominence – Meenakshi Natrajan, K Raju, Krishna Allavaru and Harish Chaudhary being given key portfolios. What is also interesting that the reshuffle did not touch the organizational secretary KC Venugopal, despite murmurs of discontent against his style of functioning. Rahul it seems is clearly standing by his team, from Venugopal to Jairam Ramesh, Ajay Maken and Randeep Surjewala. If there was any doubt as to who was running the show (that is Congress), it is now clear. The man in charge is clearly Rahul Gandhi with some help from his sister. Congress President Mallikarjun Kharge’s role will be clearly be a complimentary one in this equation.
Perhaps it is good that Rahul is setting up his team in key positions, perhaps it is a step towards him taking on more organizational responsibility. For there is no doubt that he is setting the agenda, not just for the Congress but even for the INDIA alliance in parliament. The Delhi debacle was a set back no doubt for the opposition and perhaps it wont work as a cohesive alliance but an issue based one but whatever the formation the role of the Congress – and thereby Rahul Gandhi – cannot be ignored. That was also the subtext of the message from Delhi. The Congress may not be able to win a seat but it can play the role of a spoiler quite effectively.
Already Akhilesh Yadav has responded that he will be fighting the 2027 UP state elections along with the Congress. One expect that Tejaswi Yadav could also follow a similar line of thought in Bihar. Of course the alliance in Punjab will be a casualty of what happened in Delhi as there is little likelihood of the AAP and the Congress coming together. Hence, even in loss the Congress has found a silver lining of sorts to send out a Spoiler Alert to its allies not to take it for granted.
However it is in states where the Congress takes on the BJP directly where its task is the toughest – such as Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Himachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Haryana, Chhattisgarh and to an extent Gujarat. That is where it needs to build its party and combat the BJP. Only then will the rest of the opposition take it seriously. Its not an easy ask but therein lies the road to a Congress comeback.
