New Delhi/Chandigarh:
A thousand words or less, but this photo Amarinder Singh Raja Warring posted on Thursday, accompanied by a 21-word couplet, seeks to say a lot. It shows Congress leaders hemmed in by the police to stop them from marching in Delhi. Raja Warring, removed last week as Punjab Congress chief, has his arms raised around Rahul Gandhi as cops press in from all sides. Priyanka Gandhi Vadra stands just in front of the two. Camera crews and phones on selfie sticks crowd the edges. The image is edited so that only the three leaders appear in colour, surrounded by figures in greyscale.
“Hum woh chingaari hain jo toofanon mein bhi jalti hai, hum woh aawaz hain jo zulm ke saamne uthti hai. [We are the spark that burns even in storms; we are the voice that rises against every oppression],” read a Hindi/Urdu couplet with the photo posted by the Ludhiana MP.
Raja Warring, who recently suffered bruises in the constant factional friction in Punjab Congress, did not seem to care about some actual physical jostling on Tuesday-Wednesday as Rahul Gandhi led the Opposition’s street protests against Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar.
Sporting a red turban that stood out in a crowd of mostly white, grey, and khaki, Warring was constantly in the frame as social media live-streamed the protest, and at one point he climbed atop the police bus carrying Leader of Opposition Rahul Gandhi. His bete noire, Jalandhar MP and former chief minister Charanjit Singh Channi, was among the MPs who participated in the protest, but made only cursory appearances on camera.
On Wednesday, the second day of the protest, police detained Rahul Gandhi at a roundabout near the Shangri-La hotel in central Delhi. Security personnel carried him on their shoulders into a police bus. Raja Warring and Indian Youth Congress (IYC) president Udai Bhanu Chib, along with some other leaders, climbed onto the roof of that bus. Warring is, what you’d call in college-speak, Udai Chib’s super-senior as a former IYC chief. And that is a key fact in his journey in politics in general and within Rahul Gandhi’s Congress in particular.
Warring posted multiple other pictures and videos accompanied by couplets of uncredited origin and longer verse-like posts.
संघर्ष जारी है…. 📍Delhi @DeependerSHooda @srinivasiyc @ShayarImran @Imranmasood_Inc @varunchoudhary2
— Amarinder Singh Raja Warring (@RajaBrar_INC) October 7, 2026
‘Going To Meet The Boss’
Warring handed his resignation as Punjab Congress president to Rahul Gandhi in person in Delhi on October 2. Before the meeting, he said, “I am going to meet the boss.”
“I was not asked to resign,” he said afterwards, insisting he submitted his resignation to Rahul Gandhi because it was he who had appointed him.
“I am ready to serve the party whenever the party requires me,” he said, adding that Gandhi had shown him “a lot of love”.
Warring, who took charge of the state unit in April 2022, called his exit a victory for ex-CM Charanjit Singh Channi. “Channi Sahib has won,” he said.
Soon after, Jalandhar Cantonment MLA and former hockey captain Pargat Singh was named Warring’s successor. The change followed months of bickering in which leaders including Channi and Sukhjinder Singh Randhawa had sought Warring’s removal.
Sachin Pilot was appointed the party’s Punjab affairs in-charge on September 5, replacing Bhupesh Baghel, who had favoured retaining Warring back in July.
On Wednesday, Warring met Pargat Singh in Delhi to congratulate him before the latter left for Punjab to focus on local outreach programmes.
Congratulations to Sardar @PargatSOfficial ji for being appointed as the President of the Punjab Pradesh Congress Committee @INCPunjab. My best wishes. https://t.co/sH2UFmhZe6
— Amarinder Singh Raja Warring (@RajaBrar_INC) October 2, 2026
Youth Congress To State Unit Chief
Warring rose through the party’s youth wing, starting his career as the Muktsar block chief of the Youth Congress in 2000, became the district president in 2002, and was elected Punjab Youth Congress vice-president in 2008 at a time when Rahul Gandhi was seeking to make his own mark in the party.
In the 2012 Assembly elections, at the age of 34 then, he was among the younger leaders given the party ticket reportedly as part of Team Rahul. He slayed a giant, defeating Manpreet Singh Badal, who had broken away from the Shiromani Akali Dal to form the People’s Party of Punjab, from Gidderbaha, a seat he retained in the next elections. Manpreet later entered the Congress and is now in the BJP. Raja Warring stayed put while others moved in and out.
He was appointed IYC national president in December 2014, and served for nearly four years. In May 2018, Gandhi, who had become Congress president by then, named Keshav Chand Yadav as his successor. In the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, as Rahul asked top leaders to contest, Warring entered the contest from Bathinda but lost to the SAD’s Harsimrat Kaur Badal by a relatively narrow margin.
After Rahul Gandhi stepped down as party president following the 2019 Lok Sabha defeat, Warring publicly pitched for his return at an event marking his father and former PM Rajiv Gandhi’s 75th birth anniversary, with Sonia Gandhi and Manmohan Singh in the audience. “The party wants Rahul Gandhi and the country also wants Rahul Gandhi,” he said then.
Back in Punjab, friction within the Congress was at its peak then too. Channi became CM as the party replaced Captain Amarinder Singh ahead of the 2022 polls. The Congress lost badly to the AAP. Warring took over the battered Punjab unit in April of that year, becoming its youngest-ever president.
Warring, a Sikh who otherwise sported short hair, adopted the turban in January 2023, just before Gandhi’s Bharat Jodo Yatra entered Punjab. It was seen as a signal that he wanted to be in the running for the state’s top post now. He said he was inspired to commit to the turban during a visit to a religious fair.
By May 2024, Warring was in the Lok Sabha. Gandhi had campaigned for him in Ludhiana, where he defeated Congress deserter Ravneet Singh Bittu of the BJP. His wife Amrita Warring lost the Gidderbaha assembly by-election just months later. But Warring stayed in the saddle, citing the 7/13 Lok Sabha seat win record in Punjab in the Lok Sabha polls despite the AAP being in power in the state.
But infighting persisted, with its tempo rising as the 2027 state elections neared.
On July 1, three months before his resignation, the high command announced that Warring would continue as state president, with Channi heading the campaign committee. Channi and Congress Legislature Party leader Partap Singh Bajwa did not agree with the arrangement, and others lined up behind them as it turned into a virtual rebellion. Pargat Singh, known for his measured approach, eventually replaced Warring on October 2.
Warring continued to be in Delhi, seen close to the Gandhis, while he is reportedly also looking for a new base in Chandigarh and lobbying for a chunk of the 117 tickets to be given out for the Punjab elections due in five months.
P.S.: Hooda In The Frame Too
Besides Warring, another original Team Rahul member at the forefront of the protest was Rohtak MP Deepender Singh Hooda. On Tuesday, after police stopped the INDIA bloc’s march to the Election Commission, the leaders entered the Akashvani Bhawan premises nearby.
A photograph from inside shows the group seated under a banyan tree. Rahul Gandhi is perched on the stone ledge around the trunk. Priyanka, in a white sari, rests her chin on her hand. Deepender Hooda, in a white kurta, sits on the ground facing them. There’s Channi there too, looking at his phone.
Hooda’s place beside the Gandhis comes weeks after a row over his remarks on the death of former Congress leader Sajjan Kumar, a convict in the 1984 anti-Sikh riots. Among those who criticised Deepender Hooda was Pargat Singh, now Punjab Congress chief.
Even in Haryana, Deepender and his father Bhupinder Singh Hooda are facing the heat from within the Congress unit as the party has lost successive elections under their leadership. But optics aim to show they remain close to the power centre within the party.
