Congress does not require neutrality of the Indian State to function: Rahul Gandhi

Published 12 June 2026 · politics

The Congress does not require the “neutrality of the Indian State” to operate, Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha, Rahul Gandhi said during

The Congress does not require the “neutrality of the Indian State” to operate, Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha, Rahul Gandhi said during the Indian Developmental Inclusive Alliance (INDIA) meeting held on Monday (June 12, 2026). Three days after the meeting, the Congress on Friday (June 12) released the audio and the transcript of Mr. Gandhi’s speech made in the closed-door meeting of the INDIA bloc. The address, which sets out the road ahead for the Opposition in the 2029 Lok Sabha election, lays down the terms of engagement for the Opposition alliance, positioning the Congress as the leader of the bloc while also spelling out the limitations within which the bloc will have to operate. “The Congress is a party of resistance. It does not require the neutrality of the Indian State to operate. In fact, the more the institutions of the Indian state are throttled, the more aggressively the Congress will fight to defend the Constitution,” Mr. Gandhi said. The party seemed to have timed the release of the speech on a day when the Supreme Court rejected its plea against the disqualification of Meenakshi Natarajan, the Congress candidate for the Rajya Sabha elections from Madhya Pradesh.

He framed the Congress as a “resistance movement”, in the context of the Bharatiya Janata Party and the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh “tightening their grip on the Indian State,” and rendering conventional political tools increasingly ineffective. “If political parties can’t function, what functions? Resistance functions. Resistance works. Wherever we resist, it works. I have seen it with my own eyes. I have walked 4,000 kilometres across this country — resistance works. You don’t need political architecture. You don’t need the bureaucracy. You don’t need the intelligence agencies. You need the act of resistance,” he said. In a less than 10-minute-long speech, Mr. Gandhi also addressed the criticism levelled against his party by allies such as the Samajwadi Party, Rashtriya Janata Dal, and the Left parties. “It is not my place to answer any of the things that were said today about the Congress. It is my place to, like in the Shaiva tradition, swallow everything. The idea of the blue-necked One [Shiva] who drinks all the poison.

Whatever more you want to say, whatever criticism you have of the Congress Party or me, we will accept it, and we will accept it happily, with a smile on our face,” he said. He argued that Congress occupies a fundamentally different role within the alliance. “I do not say this with arrogance. Our role, as many of you have stated, is to unite all of you together with love and affection,” he said, assuming the leadership of the INDIA bloc. Gandhi exhorted the allies to change their attitude. “The mindset must now be: we will not fight each other. We will not give the press a chance to attack us. We will resist,” he said. He expressed confidence in key allies, saying: “…I can vouch right now for the DMK. When it comes to defending the idea of India, every single person will be in this room,” even as he dismissed reports of disarray in the bloc as a BJP-driven narrative. At the same time, he did not gloss over internal contradictions.