New Delhi: Chandigarh MP Manish Tewari’s exclusion from the Congress’s newly set up election-related committees in Punjab has reignited debate on what’s seen as a punitive action by the party high command against articulate and independent-minded leaders. On Tuesday, the party constituted various committees for the upcoming assembly elections in the state. Three-term MP Tewari’s name didn’t figure in the list.
Tewari had won from Ludhiana and Anandpur Sahib Lok Sabha constituencies in Punjab in 2009 and 2019 before being shifted to Chandigarh in the 2024 election. While Congress leaders attributed his exclusion to the fact that he represents the Union territory of Chandigarh now, party sources debunked it, arguing that it remains the joint capital of Punjab and Haryana.
“Not that Manish was expecting to play any key role in Punjab elections. What was humiliating was that Rahul Gandhi invited so many leaders from Punjab for consultations about 10 days ago but didn’t think it useful to invite the two-term MP from Punjab who has been in the Congress for 45 years,” a senior Congress leader told ThePrint.
He said that Tewari, as Shashi Tharoor earlier, was paying the price for being invited by the government to be part of multi-party delegations for global outreach after Operation Sindoor. “Rahul Gandhi has taken umbrage against them for that reason,” another Congress functionary affirmed.
Tewari posted a cryptic message on X on Thursday: “I wish I had an antidote for the insecurities of individuals and institutions! Having said that @INCIndia has given me enough over the past 45 years and I have also devoted my entire adult life in the service of the Indian National Congress over the decades., Whatever will be, will be…”
What has surprised many in the party is that Tewari, a permanent invitee to the Congress Working Committee (CWC), has been a Gandhi family loyalist all through his career. It was Indira Gandhi who had appointed him NSUI national secretary before Rajiv Gandhi promoted him to general secretary and then president. He was the longest-serving NSUI president—from 1986 to 1993. Sonia Gandhi appointed him the Indian Youth Congress president in 1998.
Tewari went on to become one of the most vocal and visible voices of the party as a national spokesperson before being inducted into the Manmohan Singh government as the Information and Broadcasting Minister. The party shuffled his Lok Sabha constituency from Ludhiana to Anandpur Sahib and then to Chandigarh. He was elected each time, having wrested the UT seat from the BJP in 2024.
The BJP was quick to seize on the issue.
BJP national general secretary Tarun Chugh alleged that the treatment meted out to Tewari reflected the Congress’s “complete surrender” to the Gandhi-Vadra family.
“The power struggle in the Congress is no longer between leaders of merit—it is between the Parikramavadis and the Maha Parikramavadis, because all the Parakramavadis have already left the party. Merit, integrity and independent thinking have become liabilities in the Congress. Time for Manish Tewari to understand that today’s Congress rewards only those who perform parikrama around the Gandhi-Vadra family. Merit, integrity and independent thinking have become liabilities in the Congress. Congress has entered the era of ‘Chamcha Yug’. Competence has no place in the party. The only path to promotion is blind loyalty to one family,” Chugh said in a statement, accusing the Congress of rewarding loyalty over competence on X.
The Congress, meanwhile, has maintained that the organisational revamp is aimed at strengthening its electoral machinery ahead of next year’s Punjab elections. Along with appointing three working presidents, the party also constituted political affairs, election management, campaign, manifesto, publicity and coordination committees.
Under the rejig, the Congress retained Amarinder Singh Raja Warring as Punjab Congress chief and Pratap Singh Bajwa as CLP leader, while appointing Sukhwinder Singh Danny, Raj Kumar Verka and Sangat Singh Gilzian as working presidents. Former chief minister Charanjit Singh Channi was named campaign committee chairman, Vijay Inder Singla will head the election management committee, Sukhjinder Singh Randhawa the core committee, and Amar Singh the manifesto committee.
(Edited by Gitanjali Das)
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