For the Congress, the road to next year’s elections in Punjab has been a bumpy one for the past several weeks amid sustained infighting.
From All India Congress Committee (AICC) general secretary Bhupesh Baghel, who is in charge of the state, being compared to a British colonial officer to former Chief Minister Charanjit Singh Channi being called a “BJP-RSS agent”, the fight has been an especially unpleasant one. Now, to finally set its house in order, the Congress high command has pinned its hopes on a statewide bus journey that Leader of Opposition (LoP) Rahul Gandhi is scheduled to undertake next month.
However, some in the party remain sceptical. “We are like a family WhatsApp group where everyone has muted each other,” said a senior Congress leader. “Now someone has floated the bright idea to bundle everyone together in a bus and travel across the state. I don’t know how this addresses the core issue of removing Amrinder Singh Raja Warring as PCC (Pradesh Congress Committee) president.”
On Monday, former Chhattisgarh CM Baghel, whose recent visits to Punjab have coincided with intensification in the factional feud between the Channi and Warring camps, briefed Rahul Gandhi and Wayanad MP Priyanka Gandhi in New Delhi about the party’s troubles in Punjab and the proposed bus drive.
“I met both Rahul Gandhi and Priyanka Gandhi. The main topic was the bus journey planned for Punjab. I wanted to seek permission for the tour, specifically regarding the journey Rahul Gandhi is to undertake. They granted me time and asked me to submit a proposal outlining the schedule for the week, after which they will finalise the timing … it is going to be a major tour. Since it will cover the entire Punjab, it will take some time,” Baghel told reporters after the meeting.
Sources said as per tentative plans, the LoP will first pay obeisance at the Golden Temple in Amritsar before boarding what party optimists have billed the “unity express”. The itinerary, still being finalised, will cover a 135-km stretch from Amritsar towards Hussainiwala in the first phase, it is learnt.
“Think of it as a road trip where the main attraction isn’t the landscape but watching former CM Channi and state chief Raja Warring share the same bus without the former claiming the latter’s seat,” a Channi supporter said tongue-in-cheek.
Choreographed show
Congress leaders said the bus yatra — in which all senior state leaders, including state LoP Partap Singh Bajwa, Channi, and Warring, are set to participate — would be a carefully choreographed show designed to convince voters, and perhaps party workers and other leaders, that the deeply divided state unit had put the differences behind it.
With the 2027 elections looming and the Punjab Congress having spent recent months bickering — complete with parallel protests, debates on “one family, one ticket”, and the occasional “Go back Baghel” poster — a perception had built up that the party was not in a position to challenge the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), which is facing its own set of problems.
Previous warnings from Rahul Gandhi to state Congress leaders about working as a team or risking the bench appear to have fallen on deaf ears. For now, the hopes rest on the bus yatra and the LoP’s ability to unite the warring leaders before the elections.
