Be team players or we will bench you: Rahul Gandhi reads the riot act to Punjab Cong leaders amid infighting reports

Asserting that a single player can not win a match, Gandhi underscored the importance of teamwork and said no matter how big a leader may be, "no one is bigger than the party".

New Delhi: Top Congress leader Rahul Gandhi on Saturday read the riot act to warring Punjab leaders, warning that the leadership will bench them if they cannot “play as a team”.

In the presence of party chief Mallikarjun Kharge, the Leader of Opposition in Lok Sabha used the last 90 seconds of his nearly 30-minute address at the ‘Kisan Mahachaupal’ in Punjab’s Barnala to send the message of ‘no tolerance’ to factionalism, as party is heading to Assembly election in a year’s time.

Punjab Congress is facing intense factionalism with state chief Amarinder Singh Raja Warring, Leader of Opposition Partap Singh Bajwa and former Chief Minister Charanjit Singh Channi not backing off in the fight for leadership.

Rahul’s latest salvo comes a month after the leadership “strongly” warned the senior leaders, saying indiscipline will not be tolerated while ruling out changing Warring as state chief even as it maintained that the party will fight the election under collective leadership without projecting a face.

At the rally where he also attacked Prime Minister Narendra Modi over India-US trade deal, Epstein Files and China policy, he said, “last thing, I want to tell my friends sitting here (on dias), I want to send a message from Congress. Work is done through team work. One player alone cannot win the match.”

“We have a full team and I want to give you all this message on behalf of Kharge-ji and myself. Be a team player or we will bench you. No matter how big a player you may be, I am telling you that no one is bigger than the party. Play with team spirit or Kharge-ji and I will ensure that we will fix you,” he said.

As party supporters received the remarks with applause, Rahul went on to say that the party’s real strength is its workers. “Whatever decisions taken in Punjab, it will be by involving them and respecting them,” he said.

After the meeting with Punjab leaders in Delhi on January 22, Congress General Secretary (Organisation) KC Venugopal said that the High Command “will take decisions on candidate selection, campaigning and everything”. The meeting was called as infighting escalated in the party unit

The Congress leadership believes that the party has a chance to unseat AAP in the 2027 elections but is upset with the state leaders because of factionalism. It also has another trouble in handling former state party chief Navjot Singh Siddhu, whose wife has already joined BJP and attacked Rahul among others.