Rahul Gandhi tells CWC doubters to ‘start believing’ in him
5 min readNew DelhiSep 30, 2026 06:05 AM IST
First published on: Sep 30, 2026 at 06:04 AM IST
From Rahul Gandhi citing Narendra Modi and Amit Shah to question his doubters in the Congress to Mallikarjun Kharge’s banter with Shashi Tharoor and Abhishek Manu Singhvi’s advice to open back-channel dialogue with the Cockroach Janta Party (CJP), there were several notable moments in the Congress Working Committee (CWC) meeting on Tuesday.
Gandhi, it is learnt, told party leaders that some people in the CWC were not with him and they should “start believing” in him. The Leader of Opposition (LoP) said that at a recent meeting with Prime Minister Modi and Home Minister Shah, he was asked if he had a problem with the BJP. The LoP told the CWC that he told them he was doing what was best for his party. To this, Modi and Shah replied that if the BJP loses power, the Congress will be the one to replace it, Gandhi told the meeting. Gandhi then asked his colleagues at the CWC that if the PM and the Home Minister were “sure about the Congress” replacing them, why had some of them “not shown any confidence in the ‘vote chori’ (theft) campaign”, said sources.
As Congress leaders chimed in, praising Gandhi for sticking to the vote theft issue, the LoP replied that the party should get all the credit. Kharge is also learnt to have then intervened, saying that the entire leadership stands behind Gandhi on the issue. To this, Gandhi said they should not get left far too behind. The Congress president then told Gandhi that the entire party would walk with him, sources said.
Cockroach Janta Party
Rajya Sabha MP Abhishek Manu Singhvi is learnt to have told the CWC — the Congress’s highest decision-making body — that the party should go all out on its demand to remove Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) Gyanesh Kumar. However, he is learnt to have advised the party that it should employ a “Track-II approach” when it comes to the CJP — in diplomacy, it refers to an unofficial and informal dialogue between two sides —and refrain from raising the CEC matter legally.
Gandhi, without naming the CJP, said that the Congress’s sustained efforts had resulted in movement on issues such as vote theft and gaps in the education and examination systems, sources said.
Protest plans
After the CWC meeting at the party headquarters here, the Congress demanded the resignation of Modi, Shah, and Kumar. Sources said at the INDIA bloc meeting on Wednesday the party could propose holding joint Opposition rallies at Ramlila Maidan in Delhi and in some of the state capitals over the EC issue.
The Indian Express on September 23 reported that Election Commissioners Sukhbir Singh Sandhu and Vivek Joshi had objected on record at least 14 times in 10 months to decisions related to the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls that were taken without their knowledge and about glaring gaps in processes. In a four-page note issued after a meeting of the full Commission on September 26, the poll panel announced nine decisions that addressed, point by point, several of the concerns recorded by Commissioners Sandhu and Joshi. However, it left several questions unanswered.
During the discussion on Kumar, Sirsa MP Kumari Selja said the party should be ready for its next steps as it doesn’t look like the CEC will resign. Deliberations on the motion to be brought in Parliament seeking Kumar’s resignation should be expedited, she said. To this, Wayanad MP Priyanka Gandhi Vadra said the party should create so much pressure on Kumar and the government that he would be forced to resign.
“Selja ji said that Gyanesh Kumar has no shame and will not resign, it seems. To this, Priyanka ji said that the Congress should create such a mass movement on the issue that Gyanesh is forced to resign and that should be the only goal of the party,” said a Congress insider.
Sources said former Madhya Pradesh CM Digvijaya Singh asked the leadership to conduct a SWOT analysis — Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats — of the RSS, which he deemed the Congress’s “main ideological rival”. When Singh said the party should not have allowed former Bihar CM Nitish Kumar to switch sides ahead of the 2024 Lok Sabha elections, Kharge said the JD(U) leader never wanted a national role in the INDIA bloc and he refused to become the coordinator of the INDIA bloc, saying he wanted to be in Bihar. Congress Parliamentary Party chairperson Sonia Gandhi agreed with Kharge on this point.
In a light-hearted exchange that left those at the meeting chuckling, when Tharoor said the party should chalk out a plan for Gandhi Jayanti, Kharge quipped that he hoped to see the Thiruvananthapuram MP at a protest and not restrict himself to newspaper columns and posts on X.
