Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha Rahul Gandhi’s grouse with colleagues for not taking up social justice issues strongly enough was reflected at the Congress Working Committee (CWC) meeting on Wednesday (August 20, 2026).

When party president Mallikarjun Kharge expressed his anguish that not many colleagues had publicly raised the issue of the “purification ritual” conducted at Uttarakhand’s Haldwani, where the Congress chief had addressed a public meeting, Mr. Gandhi asked the party’s social media head, Supriya Shrinate, to prepare regular reports on how many leaders were or were not amplifying the party’s official line on issues.

Congress general secretary (organisation) K.C. Venugopal did tell the Congress chief that the party had strongly condemned the incident, but he didn’t seem “fully convinced,” claimed party sources.

Mr. Kharge had said that there were three to four “good-looking [people] who appear on TV for their articulation”, but they don’t stick to the party line on crucial issues.

The closed-door meeting also witnessed a difference of opinion between senior leader Manish Tewari and Mr. Gandhi over the issue of recent students’ protests.

Mr. Tewari said that there had only been a few “organic protests” and cited anti-Hindi protests in Tamil Nadu in the 1960s, students’ resistance in north India against the use of the English language, the Navnirman agitation in Gujarat in the mid-1970s and the Mandal agitation in the late 1980s as examples.

The Lok Sabha member from Chandigarh also made the point that student wings of political parties were not very successful in leading these protests.

Mr. Gandhi, however, countered this and claimed that students were with the Congress in the late 1970s and the early 1980s.

Sources claimed this was the third instance when Mr. Gandhi countered Mr. Tewari at a closed-door meeting CWC meeting.

Mr. Tewari didn’t interact with the media or make any statement after the meeting, but his cryptic post on the social media platform X indicated more than a disagreement.

Quoting former British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, Mr.Tewari said, “The Dictator, in all his pride, is held in the grip of his Party machine. He can go forward; he cannot go back…. All-strong without, he is all-weak within”.

Published - August 20, 2026 09:38 am IST