NEW DELHI, 23 Feb 2026 : With Congress getting blindsided state after state, Rahul needs an ‘Ahmed Patel’ of his own who can fix things before they blow up into embarrassing crises.
Optics are important in politics. And the optics have been damaging for the Congress in recent days as assembly polls near in five states, of which the party has high stakes in at least three: Kerala, Assam and Tamil Nadu.
There was barely time to bask in the satisfaction of having resolved its Shashi Tharoor problem in Kerala with a peace meeting between the disgruntled Thiruvanthapuram MP and Rahul Gandhi when the Congress found itself fire-fighting again, this time on all sides.
In Assam, its former state chief, Bhupen Borah, quit to join the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). He left despite Rahul Gandhi’s personal intervention to persuade him otherwise, and as he quit, he fired a parting shot intended to hurt by raking up BJP allegations against his successor Gaurav Gogoi’s “Pakistani links”.
In Tamil Nadu, the Congress’s staunchest ally, the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK), served notice to dump the Congress unless it agreed to the following: one, take action against two leaders considered part of Rahul Gandhi’s durbar, Praveen Chakravarty and Manik Tagore, for their sustained campaign to launch a separate Congress-led front with film actor Vijay’s fledgling Tamilaga Vettri Kazhagam (TVK); two, come to the table without further ado for seat-sharing negotiations on the DMK’s terms.
The unkindest cut came from Kerala, where long-time Gandhi family loyalist, Mani Shankar Aiyar, took pot shots at two other Rahul durbaris, KC Venugopal and Pawan Khera, and predicted a third successive win for the Left Front. “I am a Rajivian, not a Rahulian,” he declared in typical Mani style.
Almost simultaneously, another family friend and INDIA bloc ally, Farooq Abdullah of the National Conference, also forecast a Left Front victory in the state.
Aiyar and Abdullah may not count for anything in Kerala, but when friends and allies use the Congress as target practice, it makes for embarrassing headlines in a state where the party fancies its chances at forming the next government.
What Ahmed Patel Did For Sonia
Could the Congress have done damage control and saved itself from poor optics on the eve of crucial state elections? Perhaps. But for that, Rahul Gandhi would need to take a leaf out of his mother Sonia Gandhi’s playbook and find himself an effective political aide, as she had in the late Ahmed Patel.
Whatever his faults and shortcomings were, Patel earned his stripes in his long innings as Sonia Gandhi’s chief factotum, serving as troubleshooter, party handler, backroom strategist and communication channel with allies during the UPA years. He was the first port of call for anyone who wanted a word with Sonia Gandhi and readily worked the phone lines or held lengthy in-person meetings late into the night to crack the whip, hammer out compromises and strike deals. Sonia Gandhi stepped in after Patel had prepared the ground for her.
Although there were times when he was accused of making tactical errors and playing favourites, there is little doubt that he was largely instrumental in helping Sonia Gandhi to steer the UPA ship through two successive terms in power.
