Sonia Gandhi’s Haryana rally called off; Rahul Gandhi to address Mahendragarh

Congress president Sonia Gandhi’s only scheduled rally in Haryana before the assembly election, at Mahendragarh, was cancelled hours before it was due to begin. Rahul Gandhi was to address the meeting in her place.

No reason given

The party did not explain the change and removed a tweet that had announced she would not attend. The deleted post said Sonia Gandhi could not come “due to unavoidable reasons” and that Rahul Gandhi would speak at 2 PM. The rally would have been her first public meeting since she took charge of the party in August.

She was to campaign for Congress candidate Rao Daan Singh, who faces BJP minister Ram Bilas Sharma. Also expected at the meeting were Haryana in-charge Ghulam Nabi Azad, state president Kumari Selja and Bhupinder Singh Hooda, the former Chief Minister.

A rare campaigner

Sonia Gandhi had not yet campaigned in Maharashtra, which votes along with Haryana on October 21, with counting on October 24. Her public appearances had become infrequent: her most recent rally was a thanksgiving meeting for voters in Rae Bareli on June 12, and her last assembly campaign was in Telangana on November 23 the previous year. She stayed away from the Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Chhattisgarh and Mizoram campaigns.

Rahul Gandhi had stepped up his campaigning in both states. The last-minute cancellation fuelled speculation about a turf war between Sonia Gandhi’s loyalists and Rahul Gandhi’s team, which was seen as hurting the party’s chances; the Congress’s own internal estimates reportedly expected heavy losses in both states.

What happened next

In the 2019 Haryana election, the BJP won 40 seats, the Congress 31 and the Jannayak Janta Party 10, and Manohar Lal Khattar was Chief Minister after the election.

See also: Indian National Congress and elections.

Originally published on 18 October 2019. Rewritten on 9 October 2026.

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