Politics is often less about the strength of an opponent and more about the mistakes a political party makes when it believes victory is already within reach. Punjab Congress appears to be walking dangerously close to that familiar trap.
When Infighting Overshadows Agenda
The party enters the run-up to the next Assembly election with a political opportunity that should ordinarily encourage discipline, collective effort and strategic clarity. Instead, its internal disagreements are increasingly becoming the story. Meetings, organisational programmes and public appearances are being overshadowed by factional competition, competing claims of influence and an unmistakable struggle over who will control the political narrative. This is precisely where the Congress needs to pause and look back.
2022 Warning That Was Ignored
Punjab has already witnessed what happens when internal battles become more important than the larger electoral objective. The 2022 Assembly election should have permanently settled that question. In 2022, the decline was not caused by one factor alone. There was anti-incumbency, dissatisfaction with the government, competing political narratives and a rapidly changing mood among voters. But there was another problem that the Congress itself created: prolonged internal conflict.
The Cost of a Divided House
The party’s leadership crisis became the political spectacle. Instead of presenting a united government seeking another mandate, Congress increasingly appeared to be a house fighting over its own furniture. Leadership changes, competing centres of authority and the prolonged battle between senior figures created confusion among workers and voters alike. The most damaging message was not what one faction said about another. It was what the entire spectacle communicated to the electorate: that the party was more interested in deciding who would lead it than in deciding what Punjab needed. That lesson should have been absorbed by now.
From Debate to Public Discord
Yet the present situation gives the impression that the Congress has once again begun confusing an internal organisational contest with an electoral strategy. There is nothing unusual about differences within a political party. In fact, healthy disagreement can strengthen an organisation. Political parties are not military establishments where everyone must think alike. Different leaders have different assessments, ambitions, constituencies and political strategies. The problem begins when disagreement stops being private debate and becomes public warfare.
A Party Splintered by Its Own Rivalries
When party programmes become demonstrations of rival strength, when workers are compelled to identify themselves with competing camps, when organisational meetings become arenas for slogan-shouting and when every appointment is interpreted through the prism of factional advantage, the party ceases to function as a political organisation and begins to resemble a collection of competing political establishments. That is dangerous in any election. It is particularly dangerous in Punjab.
Unity Must Come Before the Campaign
The Congress does not need to defeat only its political opponents. It first needs to convince its own workers that there is one election, one organisation and one common objective. A worker standing at a polling booth does not need to know which faction has won an organisational argument. He or she needs to know whom the party is fighting for, what its message is and whether the leadership is united enough to carry that message to every village, town and city. Every day spent fighting internally is a day not spent building that organisation.
The Danger of Taking Victory for Granted
The greater danger is psychological. When leaders begin believing that victory is inevitable, competition within the party becomes more intense. Everyone starts calculating his or her position in the government that has not yet been formed. The question changes from “How do we win?” to “Who will get what after we win?” That is perhaps the most dangerous stage of an election campaign.
How Internal Conflict Squanders an Advantage
A political party can survive a weak opponent. It can survive criticism from the media. It can even survive temporary unpopularity. What it cannot easily survive is the belief among its own leadership that the election is already won. The 2022 experience demonstrated this brutally. The Congress had the advantage of incumbency, a substantial organisational network and a record of winning a commanding majority in the previous election. Yet the party entered the campaign carrying the baggage of its internal disputes. By the time voters were asked to make their choice, the Congress had lost the political advantage it once possessed.
Time to Correct Course
The electorate does not reward a party merely because its opponent is unpopular. Voters want to see confidence, coherence and purpose. If a party cannot maintain discipline when it believes circumstances are favourable, voters may reasonably ask whether it will be capable of governing cohesively after winning. This is why the current infighting should not be dismissed as an ordinary family quarrel. The Congress may still have sufficient time to correct course. In fact, that is the most important point. The present situation is not irreversible. But correction requires more than photographs of leaders sharing a stage.
Unity Requires More Than a Photo-Op
Unity cannot be manufactured for the cameras while factional warfare continues behind closed doors. Nor can it be achieved by repeatedly asking rival camps to suppress their differences. The organisation needs a clear hierarchy of authority, transparent responsibilities and a single electoral strategy. Most importantly, the leadership must establish one principle: no individual ambition can be greater than the party’s electoral objective. Those who want leadership positions must first help build the organisation. Those who want a larger role must demonstrate their ability to expand the party’s support. Those who disagree with decisions have every democratic right to make their case but the argument cannot continue indefinitely once a decision has been taken.
A Divided Party Needs No Opponent
There is another lesson from 2022 that should not be forgotten. Political opponents do not have to destroy a divided party. A divided party often destroys itself. The Congress does not need to hand its opponents ammunition. Every public quarrel, every accusation, every competing show of strength and every organisational confrontation provides political rivals with a ready-made narrative: that the party is not prepared to govern because it is still trying to decide who should control it. That narrative can become far more damaging than any opposition campaign. Punjab’s electorate has repeatedly demonstrated that it can change political loyalties dramatically. The state’s voters are neither permanently tied to one party nor obliged to reward historical associations. They can move rapidly when they sense an opportunity for change. Therefore, no political party should assume that favourable circumstances automatically translate into votes.
The Choice Between Repetition and Renewal
The Congress still has the opportunity to convert its organisational strength and political space into an electoral advantage. But that will require humility. The party must stop behaving as though the principal contest is taking place inside Congress offices. The real contest is outside them. It is in the villages where voters are discussing their problems. It is in the towns where young people are debating their future. It is among farmers, traders, employees, women, students and ordinary families who will ultimately decide which party deserves their vote. They are unlikely to care who won an internal meeting. They will care whether a political party appears capable of putting Punjab before itself. That is the choice confronting the Congress today. It can repeat the old cycle: internal rivalry, leadership disputes, competing camps, delayed decisions, weakened workers and an election campaign consumed by questions of power. Or it can learn from 2022.
The Moment to Learn from the Past
The warning signs are already visible. The question is whether the party will recognise them before the electorate does. History does not always repeat itself. But political parties that refuse to learn from history have a remarkable ability to repeat their own mistakes. Punjab Congress still has time to prove that this time will be different. But time, once wasted in internal bickering, cannot be recovered on polling day.
(Views expressed are personal.)