INTO THE SOUTHEASTER

Rahul Gandhi will be the Congress’s lead campaigner in the upcoming assembly elections, but whether or not he will return as party president could depend on the poll results

- SONI MISHRA

The budget session of Parliament saw the Congress contingent in the Lok Sab-ha demand a separate discussion on the farm laws; their protests resulted in a washout of four consecutive days of business. Former Congress president Rahul Gandhi led the party’s agitation; he dubbed the Narendra Modi regime a government of ‘Hum Do, Hamare Do’ (We two; ours two), which passed the farm laws to benefit crony capitalists. In the Rajya Sabha, though, the party was more subdued, agreeing to raise the farmers’ issue as part of the motion of thanks to the president’s address.

This highlighted the divide in the party. Leaders known to be close to Gandhi, such as the party’s leader in the house Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury, deputy leader Gaurav Gogoi, chief whip Kodikunnil Suresh, and whips Manickam Tagore and Ravneet Singh Bittu, took the lead in the lower house. In the upper house, leader of opposition Ghulam Nabi Azad and his deputy Anand Sharma—who were among the senior leaders who wrote a letter of dissent to the Congress leadership last year—held forth with more nuance.

While the leadership question still remains—Gandhi had resigned as Congress president and his mother Sonia has been interim chief since—the proceedings in Parliament showed that Gandhi was the de facto leader of the party, setting the agenda for it inside and outside Parliament. During the past several months, leaders who were in sync with him have been appointed to key positions. This was also evident in the states going to the polls—Jitendra Singh, a long-time confidant of Rahul, was given charge of Assam; old warhorse Tariq Anwar was given Kerala; Jitin Prasada was given West Bengal, and Dinesh Gundu Rao, Tamil Nadu and Puducherry.