After Punjab, Congress high command faces another test in poll-bound Uttar Pradesh

UP Congress president Ajay Rai. (File Photo) 5 min readNew DelhiSep 8, 2026 07:20 AM IST First published on: Sep 8, 2026 at 07:10 AM IST With elections due in Uttar Pradesh early next year and the task of finalising a seat-sharing arrangement with the Samajwadi Party (SP) yet to be formalised, the Congress has another headache: differences between state president Ajay Rai and All India Congress Commitee (AICC) in-charge Rajendra Pal Gautam. This comes days after high command stepped in to address the volatile situation in its unit in Punjab, another state set to go to polls in early 2027, and changed the AICC in-charge. Sources in the state unit said the two leaders — Rai, a Bhumihar from Varanasi, and Gautam, a Dalit leader whose politics has largely been centred in Delhi — have very different styles of functioning, which has led to friction between them. Rai was appointed state president in August 2023, while Gautam took charge as the AICC in-charge in June this year.