The Congress faces a paradoxical situation: the party’s rise in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections has given it a perch to fly high, yet, for the sake of the Opposition unity, it must downscale its ambitions in certain states, where it must put on the backburner its expansion plans. It must be prepared to play second fiddle in the Opposition symphony in pockets of India, a status difficult to accept for a party with a memory of being in power for decades.

This paradox has emerged because of Rahul Gandhi’s efforts to redefine the Congress ideology. For instance, during a Lok Sabha debate last week, he challenged the Bharatiya Janata Party’s interpretation as well as politicisation of Hinduism. This comes on top of his persistent demand for conducting a Caste Census and distributing government jobs to different categories of social groups—the Scheduled Castes, the Scheduled Tribes and the Other Backward Classes—in proportion to their share in the population.