Why Congress has become its own enemy in Uttar Pradesh

When Ajai Rai was appointed as the state party president in 2023, there was hope that a grassroots leader from eastern UP would infuse energy into the state unit.

Despite an encouraging performance in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections, the Congress party has failed to build on its momentum in Uttar Pradesh, the state that holds the key to political power in Delhi. While the party’s modest electoral resurgence had rekindled hope among loyalists, the failure to follow through with organisational reforms has left the cadre disillusioned and the party machinery paralyzed.

It has been six months since Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge dissolved the Uttar Pradesh Congress Committee (UPCC) in December 2024 with much fanfare, promising a comprehensive overhaul. The aim was to strengthen the party’s base and prepare for the 2027 Assembly elections. However, that promise remains unfulfilled — not only has the new committee not been formed, but internal bickering and competing camps within the party have deepened, pushing the UP Congress into a state of confusion and inertia.

“The Congress had a real opportunity to recapture lost political ground in Uttar Pradesh, especially after the BJP’s setbacks in the Lok Sabha elections,” says Rajendra Kumar, a senior political analyst based in Lucknow. “But the delay in building a strong organisational foundation shows that the Congress is still caught in its old web of factionalism.”

When Ajai Rai was appointed as the state party president in 2023, there was hope that a grassroots leader from eastern UP would infuse energy into the state unit. However, the transition has been anything but smooth. In March this year, when the party released a list of district and city presidents, it sparked outrage among long-time workers. Many senior leaders accused the high command of favouring newcomers and ignoring committed loyalists, calling the appointments arbitrary and poorly thought out.

Ajai Rai, sources say, was left frustrated. He reportedly wrote to the central leadership demanding changes in at least a dozen appointments, arguing that some of the selected leaders lacked both political credibility and public connect. His appeal, however, went unheeded.

In what many interpret as a subtle rebellion, Rai bypassed the high command’s decision by appointing district and city conveners — an alternative layer of leadership to work alongside the officially appointed presidents. Simultaneously, he set up a Sangathan Srajan Control Room headed by his close aide Sanjay Dixit, who is now tasked with overseeing coordination and committee formation at the local level.

Dixit’s return has stirred fresh controversy. Expelled from the Congress earlier for alleged anti-party activities, Dixit was reinstated quietly after Rai assumed charge. Since then, he has emerged as Rai’s key strategist, even managing the so-called ‘war rooms’ during the 2024 election campaign.

A senior Congress leader, speaking on condition of anonymity, remarked: “No one even knows when or how Dixit’s expulsion was revoked. His sudden prominence has undermined other power centres in the state unit, especially those loyal to Sandeep Singh — the former secretary to Priyanka Gandhi when she was the party’s UP in-charge.”

This intra-party rivalry is becoming increasingly visible. The current AICC general secretary in-charge of UP, Avinash Pandey, recently advised party workers not to include his photograph in posters or banners. This statement was interpreted as a veiled criticism of Priyanka Gandhi’s continued visual dominance in party propaganda in UP, despite her having stepped away from direct organisational responsibility. Pandey’s discomfort reflects the ongoing tussle between two factions operating from the high command — one loyal to the Priyanka camp and another trying to assert a new direction under Kharge’s leadership.

“Such symbolic gestures might seem minor, but they indicate a deeper crisis,” explains Dr Nomita Kumar, a senior fellow at the Giri Institute of Development Studies. “The Congress in UP suffers from dual leadership confusion. Without clear authority, the state unit is being pulled apart by competing loyalties, which is damaging its electoral prospects.”

In an attempt to resolve the crisis and revamp the organisation, Kharge in December 2024 constituted the Sangathan Srajan Committee, comprising senior party leaders including Salman Khurshid, Arun Kumar Singh ‘Munna’, Raj Babbar, Ajay Kumar Lallu and Nirmal Khatri. The idea was to balance youth with experience, and loyalty with fresh talent. The committee completed a week-long consultation exercise across the state in January this year and promised to finalise the new UP Congress team within 100 days.

But that deadline has long passed, and the committee’s recommendations remain in cold storage.

A former Congress MP who was part of the consultation process said: “Every leader in the committee wants his own loyalists included in the new team. There’s no larger vision. The fight is not for the party — it is about individual fiefdoms.”

Meanwhile, party workers at the grassroots remain disoriented. Local units, in the absence of clear command and formal structure, have been functioning without direction. The overlapping authority between.