July 17, 2026

Congress: Removing Powerless State Chiefs Will Not Stop The Rot

By Sunil Garodia
First publised on 2022-03-16 16:27:17

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Editor-in-Chief of indiacommentary.com. Current Affairs analyst and political commentator. Author of Cyber Scams in India, Digital Arrest, The Money Trap and The Human Hack

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Sonia Gandhi, the interim president of the Congress party, sacked the state unit chiefs of all five states where the party had received a drubbing in the recent elections - at the hands of the AAP in Punjab and the BJP in UP, Goa, Uttarakhand and Manipur. In an unusual move, party spokesperson Randeep Surjewala tweeted to publicly ask Navjot Singh Sidhu (Punjab), Ganesh Godiyal (Uttarakhand), Ajay Kumar Lallu (UP), Girish Chodankar (Goa) and N Loken Singh (Manipur) to resign from their posts to facilitate the reorganization of the state units.

While it is true that the revamp and rewiring that was being talked about after the loss must start with the reorganization of the state units in the states where the party lost, the problem is not so easy with the Congress. It is well known that in UP at least, Lulla was the president only for formality. The entire gig was being run by Priyanka Vadra. The party chiefs in other states too do not have the power delegated to them to hold them solely responsible for the defeat. There are party observers and campaign managers for each state. Then there is the high command which actually calls the shots. Removing people who have the responsibility but not the power serves no purpose when those who were there to direct and control their every action emerge unscathed from the ruins.

The Congress high command is trying to stop the buck at the desk of the chiefs of the state units when it is clear that they had little or no say in the major decisions like selection of the chief ministerial candidate, selection of candidates or the way the campaign was to be run. If the Congress thinks that by removing these state presidents, some of whom were handpicked by the Gandhi siblings, will solve matters, it is sadly mistaken. The rot starts from the high command where wrong decisions are taken and wrong people are backed but no one owns the responsibility. Without a fresh team at the top that will bring new ideas, there is little hope that the Congress will reinvent itself. The Congress is hoping that since it is the only all-India party after the BJP, the people will vote for it once their love affair with the BJP runs out. But that dream will not materialize as the regional parties are fast pushing it to the margins.