Congress Party Launches Organisational Revival Campaign in Madhya Pradesh After Electoral Defeats

The Hindu

19 hours ago

Published : Jun 05, 2025 11:47 IST - 8 MINS READ
On June 3, Congress leader Rahul Gandhi addressed a packed auditorium in Bhopal's Ravindra Bhawan. The audience comprised leaders and workers from the Madhya Pradesh unit of the party and the occasion was the launch of the party's ambitious plan to restructure and re-energise its organisation in the politically crucial Hindi heartland State.
Addressing the gathering, Gandhi said: 'The talent needed to defeat the BJP is present right here in this room. But your hands are tied. Your voice is not heard in the organisation.' The statement was greeted with a loud roar.
The remark was apt since the event marked the launch of the party's 'Sangathan Srijan Abhiyan' (campaign to rejuvenate the organisation), which will focus on appointing a new set of district presidents and empowering them in an effort to decentralise decision-making.
'We want to transform the party, and a beginning will be made at the level of the district president. We want to bring in people who are totally committed to the party and are energetic,' Gandhi said.
He further said: 'Race ke ghode ko aur baraat ke ghode ko alag karna padega [we will have to segregate race horses from show horses]...ek aur kism ka ghoda hota hai, langda ghoda, jise hum retire karenge [there is also a third category of horses, lame horses, who we will retire].'
The principal opposition party has declared that 2025 will be dedicated to reviving its organisation, with Madhya Pradesh among the focus States. The choice is significant, as the party is locked in a direct contest with the BJP here—a contest it is increasingly finding difficult to win.
The Congress dominated in Madhya Pradesh between 1957 and 1998, winning seven State elections. Chhattisgarh was carved out of Madhya Pradesh on November 1, 2000. Between 2000 and 2023, the Congress won only once, in 2018. The Congress government which was then formed under the chief ministership of Kamal Nath fell in 2020 when Jyotiraditya Scindia, along with MLAs loyal to him, left the Congress and joined the BJP.
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In the 2023 Assembly election, the Congress won only 66 out of the 230 Legislative Assembly seats. In the 2024 Lok Sabha election, the party could not win even one of the 29 seats in the State, losing even Chhindwara, the Kamal Nath stronghold that had so far resisted the BJP's advance.
The Vidisha factor
In fact, Vidisha district, where the State unit of the party has launched a parallel programme to revive the grassroots organisation, offers a microcosm of the party's problems in Madhya Pradesh.
Vidisha Lok Sabha constituency in Madhya Pradesh has been a saffron stronghold since it came into being in 1967. In the 1991 parliamentary election, BJP stalwart Atal Bihari Vajpayee reclaimed the Vidisha seat with a decisive victory, ending the eight-year interlude during which Congress leader Pratap Bhanu Sharma had represented the constituency in the Lok Sabha. Vajpayee vacated Vidisha, opting to be an MP from Lucknow. The seat has since then been won by top BJP leaders such as Shivraj Singh Chouhan and Sushma Swaraj.
The story is not very different in the Assembly election, where the BJP has again dominated the proceedings. In the 2023 State election, out of the eight Legislative Assembly segments in the Vidisha Lok Sabha seat, the BJP won seven, and the Congress won only one. The Congress has won the Vidisha Assembly segment only twice since the 1960s. Although it held the Budhni Assembly constituency—part of the Vidisha Lok Sabha seat—for four consecutive terms beginning in 1980, Shivraj Singh Chouhan broke this streak in 1990, and the party has failed to reclaim the seat since.
Vidisha tells a story of how it is becoming increasingly difficult for the Congress to defeat the BJP in direct contests in the Hindi heartland. It also shows how staying out of power for long makes it very difficult to stage a comeback.
It is in Vidisha that the Congress has now launched a pilot project to revive its organisation. It also believes that the experience in the district will provide a blueprint for restructuring the State unit. If the Vidisha plan is successful, it will be replicated in the other 54 districts in the State.
The party is working to create a new level of functionaries at the grassroots—a panchayat committee in the rural areas and a ward committee in the urban centres. Vidisha has 577 gram panchayats and 139 urban wards. The Vidisha project began on May 22 and was expected to go on for around a month.
The panchayat committee and the ward committee, with 14 members each, would form a new level in the party hierarchy in addition to the existing three levels—sector, mandalam and booth. Congress veteran Kamal Nath had introduced the mandalam level when he took over as State Congress president in 2018.
'Around 100 trained observers have fanned out in Vidisha to identify workers, leaders and non-aligned individuals who are committed to the Congress's ideology and are capable of taking the party's message to the people. These observers will also study the issues that hamper the party's work on the ground,' said Manoj Kapoor, State Congress secretary and in charge of Vidisha.
The exercise is also expected to help the party identify workers who can be included in frontal organisations such as the Youth Congress and the Mahila Congress.
'Vidisha used to be a BJP stronghold, and we had succeeded in breaking the trend. However, things changed after Atalji came here and won the seat. I am hopeful that now, with the party focusing on reviving the organisation, we can make a comeback in Vidisha and elsewhere in the State,' said State Congress Vice President Pratap Bhanu Sharma, who won the Vidisha Lok Sabha seat in 1980 and 1984 before it swung back to the BJP.
Simultaneously, the AICC has launched the 'Sangathan Srijan Abhiyan' to revive the organisation and empower the functionaries at the lower rungs of the party. A total of 61 observers have been appointed by the AICC who will for the next three months camp in the districts assigned to them, and they have been given the task of understanding the strengths and weaknesses in the party's functioning at that level.
The exercise is in keeping with the Congress leadership's avowed focus on decentralising decision-making by empowering the district presidents and making the District Congress Committees the main centre of activities such as providing inputs on selection of candidates and planning outreach programmes. A special meeting of the Congress Working Committee in Belagavi, Karnataka on December 26, 2024, and the AICC Session in Ahmedabad on April 9, 2025 resolved that the year 2025 would be utilised by the party as 'a year of organisational empowerment'.
Gandhi has selected Gujarat and Madhya Pradesh as model States to carry out an organisational revamp. What is common between the two States from the Congress's point of view is that elections in both the States are a direct contest between the Congress and the BJP and the organisation in both the States has been weakened considerably over the last few decades. Devoid of power, the Congress has found it difficult in the two States to enthuse its workers while many leaders have left the party to join the BJP.
'A major task for the observers is to identify workers and leaders who are committed to the party and those who are not. There are around 28 lakh Congress workers in Madhya Pradesh. However, there are many workers who may not be very active on the ground or working for the organisation 24x7. There are also many workers who are aligned to leaders rather than the party. For example, there were workers who were loyal to Jyotiraditya Scindia and left with him,' said Sanjay Kamle, State Congress general secretary and State in charge of organisation.
The central observers, aided by a team of State-level observers selected by Madhya Pradesh Congress, will identify party functionaries working on the ground who can be appointed as district presidents.
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'The Congress organisation becomes active only on the eve of elections. We want to put in place a team that should always be active. They should be alive to the issues of the people. The people are really upset with the Modi government. There are issues of unemployment and price rise. The BJP's attempts to take credit for Operation Sindoor is not going down well with the people. The only way to tap this anger is going to the people at the district level,' said Sharma.
The appointment of Patwari, known to be close to Gandhi, was seen as marking the end of the dominance of leaders like Nath and former Chief Minister Digvijaya Singh. Rajasthan Congress leader Harish Chaudhary, also known to enjoy the confidence of Gandhi, was appointed as AICC in charge of the State. However, Patwari is said to be facing resistance from other leaders and bringing different factions together is a big challenge for him.
'Factions are there in every party, and until a certain point, the competition between them is actually good for the party. After all, everyone is working under the party flag. However, if it begins to harm the interests of the party, there is definitely a problem. Our government fell because of this. However, right now, factionalism is not such a serious issue. The main issue for us is survival,' said Kamle.
It is an uphill task for the Congress to rebuild its organisation in Madhya Pradesh and tougher still to get its house in order.