A column argued that the Congress had, within a single week, let slip two chances to regain some control of the national political debate.

The Bharat Ratna ceremony

The first, according to the column, was the absence of the Gandhi family from the Bharat Ratna ceremony at Rashtrapati Bhavan on Thursday evening, where former President Pranab Mukherjee, a lifelong Congressman, received the country’s highest civilian honour. Prime Minister Narendra Modi, BJP president Amit Shah and most of the Cabinet attended.

Sources quoted in the piece said the absence was a message over Mukherjee’s visit to the RSS headquarters in Nagpur the previous year, when he was chief guest and main speaker at a passing-out parade of Sangh volunteers despite objections within the Congress. The column argued that outsiders saw the absence as a lost chance to claim Mukherjee as the party’s own, and that it let the BJP again portray the Congress as a family-run party.

Divisions over Article 370

The second and, in the column’s view, more damaging setback was the party’s uncertain opposition to ending Article 370. Ghulam Nabi Azad, Leader of Opposition in the Rajya Sabha, took a firm line against the move, but several Congress leaders disagreed publicly before the leadership settled its position about 24 hours later.

Jyotiraditya Scindia backed the government shortly before a CWC meeting, and Deepender Hooda and Kumari Shelja, both from a state heading for polls later that year, took a similar view. RPN Singh said the party should take note of the national mood. According to the column, Azad pressed for a hard line and the three Gandhis agreed with him. The CWC later issued a statement condemning the “unilateral, brazen and totally undemocratic manner” of the decision.

The worry

The column said some in the party feared a repeat of the Lok Sabha election, which they believed the party lost partly over its response to the Balakot airstrikes. It concluded that the challenge for the new president, due to be chosen on Saturday, would be to make the party speak with one voice.

What happened next

Sonia Gandhi became interim Congress president in August 2019.

See also: Indian National Congress and political leaders.

Originally published on 10 August 2019. Rewritten on 9 October 2026.

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