top of page

By:

Rajendra Pandharpure

15 April 2025 at 7:55:54 pm

Congress Shakes Off Its Lethargy

Rahul Gandhi’s student outreach is giving the Congress a boost in western Maharashtra but converting street energy into electoral momentum will be the harder task. Pune: For a party that has spent much of the past dozen years looking politically exhausted, the Congress is finally showing signs of life. It appears that Rahul Gandhi’s Chhatron Ki Goonj (“Voice of Students”) campaign, which brought him to Pune has provided Maharashtra Congress workers with a much-needed sense of political...

Congress Shakes Off Its Lethargy

Rahul Gandhi’s student outreach is giving the Congress a boost in western Maharashtra but converting street energy into electoral momentum will be the harder task. Pune: For a party that has spent much of the past dozen years looking politically exhausted, the Congress is finally showing signs of life. It appears that Rahul Gandhi’s Chhatron Ki Goonj (“Voice of Students”) campaign, which brought him to Pune has provided Maharashtra Congress workers with a much-needed sense of political purpose. The Congress’s student wing had already been demanding an inquiry into the NEET examination controversy and the resignation of the Union education minister. After the lathi-charge on students on July 20, the party shifted into a more combative mode with Gandhi attempting to turn the episode into a broader political campaign. He staged a sit-in outside Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s residence and was removed by police. He subsequently appeared at press conferences alongside students injured during the protests and recently accompanied students wounded by pellet guns while filing an FIR with the Delhi Police. Politics of Confrontation By placing students at the centre of his campaign, Gandhi is seeking to reposition himself as a political interlocutor for younger Indians. The response at the Chhatron Ki Goonj gathering in Prayagraj suggested that the message had found an audience. Pune was the next stop. The August 22 gathering brought the campaign to western Maharashtra, a region where the Congress has traditionally had a substantial political footprint but where its organisational machinery has lost much of its old vitality. The event offered Gandhi an opportunity to reconnect with students and young voters while simultaneously energising a state unit that has often appeared trapped between organisational inertia and the dominance of its allies. The significance of the Pune event therefore extends beyond the size of the crowd. For much of the Congress’s recent history, that belief has been in short supply. A high-energy campaign centred on students, examinations, jobs and institutional accountability gives the party a simpler proposition to sell. There is also a wider political calculation. Western Maharashtra remains one of the most politically competitive regions in the state, shaped by the fortunes of the Congress, the Nationalist Congress Party factions and the BJP. The Congress cannot afford to surrender the region to its rivals if it wants to rebuild itself in Maharashtra. Nor can it rely indefinitely on alliances to compensate for weak grassroots mobilisation. Gandhi’s intervention may thus be less about an immediate electoral breakthrough than about rebuilding political muscle. Student politics provides a useful entry point because grievances over examinations, recruitment and employment cut across caste and party affiliations. They also offer the Congress an issue on which it can attack the government without being trapped in the familiar ideological contests of Indian politics. But a crowd at a political event can only demonstrate mood; it cannot by itself produce votes. The real test for the Congress will be whether the energy generated by Chhatron Ki Goonj survives after the microphones are switched off. Can student mobilisation be converted into campus networks, local campaigns and eventually a durable cadre? Can the Maharashtra unit turn Mr Gandhi’s visibility into sustained activity in constituencies where the party has been eclipsed? Those are harder questions. The Congress’s challenge is to ensure that the goonj does not fade once the rally is over.

Sunetra Pawar in a crowd 50-plus contenders

Mumbai:  The Nationalist Congress Party’s efforts for a walkover in Baramati Assembly by its President and Deputy Chief Minister Sunetra Ajit Pawar may be a pipe-dream.

 

The by-poll has attracted a veritable circus of over 50-candidates with more than 60 nomination forms filed – negating the NCP’s public postures for an ‘unopposed election’ that created much political badmouthing.

 

As per Election Commission of India data, a total of 58 nominations were filed of which six were rejected on various grounds.

 

That leaves a whopping 50-plus nominees comprising independents or small parties still remaining in the fray, including the main rival, Congress-Vanchit Bahujan Aghadi’s formidable Adv. Akash M. More.

 

Nevertheless, NCP bigwigs are hopeful that many more, especially the non-serious candidates may fall by the wayside tomorrow – April 9 being the last date for withdrawals.

 

As Sunetra Pawar jostles in a crowd of contenders, many from the Mahayuti, including Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis, her son Parth A. Pawar and other leaders have been publicly clamouring for a ‘consensus’ in memory of the late Ajit A. Pawar – who was killed in an aircrash on Jan.28.

 

Faced with the embarrassing predicament after the Congress gave a brutal tongue-lash to Parth Pawar for his utterances, now the NCP leaders have attempted to change the narrative.

 

Claiming that Sunetra Pawar’s victory is guaranteed, the effort now is to target a “historic mandate, with the highest number of votes polled and the widest margin over the nearest rival”, breaking records not only for Baramati Assembly segment but also of all the previous Pawar clan members who have won it.

 

Intended to be a solemn by-poll – necessitated after the tragic demise of the incumbent, Ajit Pawar, a 8-term MLA and 6-time DyCM – it has degenerated into a cacophony-cum-slanging match between the ruling Mahayuti and Opposition Maha Vikas Aghadi.

 

While NCP Working President Praful Patel has reached out to Congress President Mallikarjun Kharge for withdrawing Adv. More’s candidature, the state unit led by Harshawardhan Sapkal has maintained a tough posture.

 

“If public sentiments matter so much, then what about the peoples’ doubts regarding the (Baramati) plane crash… Why is the government not registering a FIR in the matter,” Sapkal shot back today.

 

Even as some Congress leaders like Chief Spokesperson Atul Londhe and others hinted at withdrawing from the by-poll race, Parth Pawar’s unexpected onslaught on the grand old party again soured the atmosphere.

 

As a massive row boiled over, the Nationalist Congress Party (SP)’s Sharad Pawar, Supriya Sule, Rohit R. Pawar and Shiv Sena (UBT) leaders like Sanjay Raut and others sided with the Congress and justified its decision to field Adv. More in Baramati – rankling the NCP.

Comments

bottom of page