Congress Working Committee backs Rahul Gandhi as 2019 face, opens door to alliances

The Congress Working Committee, revamped recently and the party’s top decision-making forum, met on Sunday to plan for the year-end assembly elections in BJP-ruled Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh and for the 2019 Lok Sabha polls. The five-hour meeting produced two main outcomes: Rahul Gandhi would be the party’s prime ministerial face in 2019, and the party would pursue tie-ups and alliances. An analysis of the meeting argued that the road to recovery would be long and difficult.

The two decisions

The meeting came two days after Rahul’s attack on Prime Minister Narendra Modi in the no-confidence debate, which he ended by hugging the Prime Minister. Rahul, who took over as party president from his mother in December 2017, is to set up a group to explore alliances. Sonia Gandhi, who has built alliances since 2003, was expected to help from behind the scenes while her son remains the public face.

The challenges

The analysis said the party still faced problems left by its 2014 defeat, when it won just 44 Lok Sabha seats with a vote share below 20%, only slightly ahead of the AIADMK’s 37 and the Trinamool Congress’s 34. These included rebuilding public trust and the organisation down to booth level, reaching farmers, the poor, Dalits and minorities, raising funds and winning the battle of perception against the BJP. It noted that a Committee on Future Challenges set up by Sonia Gandhi in 2008, and two reviews by A K Antony, had not yielded a vision document.

The Congress last won a majority in 1984, taking 404 of 543 seats after Indira Gandhi’s assassination. It led governments in 1991, 2004 and 2009 but without that strength. It then ruled only Punjab, Mizoram and Puducherry, and shared power with the JD(S) in Karnataka.

Allies’ ambitions

Potential partners had their own plans. The BSP had projected Mayawati for the top post, while Mamata Banerjee intended to bring opposition leaders together on January 19, 2019 to launch a Federal Front in which, she said, the Congress could be a partner but not the leader; she also said her party would contest all 42 seats in West Bengal on its own. The analysis argued that to be taken seriously, the Congress would need a strong showing in Rajasthan, Chhattisgarh and Madhya Pradesh, better results in 10 states where it has a presence, and a Lok Sabha tally of around 150.

What happened next

In the 2018 assembly elections, the Congress won 114 seats in Madhya Pradesh, 68 in Chhattisgarh and 99 of the 199 seats that voted in Rajasthan; Kamal Nath, Bhupesh Baghel and Ashok Gehlot became Chief Ministers. In the 2019 Lok Sabha election the BJP won 303 seats and the Congress 52, and Rahul Gandhi resigned as Congress president in July 2019.

See also: Indian National Congress, elections

Originally published on 26 July 2018. Rewritten on 9 October 2026.

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