- Monday, March 10, 2025
By: Shubham Ghosh
India’s major opposition Indian National Congress has been facing crisis in one state after another but it seems Rahul Gandhi, one of its main leaders who many of the party’s supporters expect to return as the president and lead from the front, is not too bothered about them.
The latest state where the grand-old party is witnessing a major crisis is Rajasthan, one of the last few states where it is in power. The ruling party faced crisis in the north-western state after more than 80 members of the legislative assembly who are close to chief minister Ashok Gehlot quit on Sunday (25) night and gave their resignations to CP Joshi, the speaker of the state assembly. They have opposed the appointment of a new chief minister from those who rebelled against the government of Gehlot two years ago.
Gehlot is in the running for the post of the Congress’s president, election for which will take place on October 17. He will file his nomination paper on Tuesday (27) and as he inched towards becoming the chief of the party, lawmakers in Rajasthan close to him have made it clear that if Gehlot became the the president, they will not accept his bitter state rival Sachin Pilot as the next chief minister of Rajasthan.
Meanwhile, the party was not impressed by the developments in Rajasthan and Gehlot was accused of flexing his loyalists and humiliating the Congress. The lawmakers even refused to meet some central leaders Ajay Maken and Mallijarjun Kharge who went back to Delhi and the Rajasthan chief minister was accused of humiliating central leaders, NDTV reported.
However, Rahul Gandhi seemed to be little perturbed. The parliamentarian from Wayanad, Kerala, is currently undertaking the Congress’s ‘Bharat Jodo Yatra’ (United India March) in a bid to mobilise support and a video emerged showing him playing football with children in Palakkad in the southern state.
On Monday, the party posted the video on its Twitter handle and captioned it in Hindi saying, “We have to nurture the future of these kids and for this, every difficulty would be fought.”
The 40-something second video showed kids dressed in purple T-shirts and white shorts playing football with Gandhi on the streets of Palakkad. He was also seen interacting with the children and garnering cheers.
Rahul has refused to become the president of the party, the post he held for less than two years between 2017 and 2019 and gave up after the party’s poor show in the 2019 general elections.
