Bhupesh Baghel visited Brahm Mohindra's house in Patiala on Thursday morning on a five-day trip that has turned into one that's just getting longer. All India Congress Committee's spokesman for Punjab has been doing a lot of talking since Monday to appease and defuse a rebellion that broke out as soon as the party high command decided to retain Amarinder Singh Raja Warring in the chief's seat. But a mere organisational reshuffle has become the loudest public expression of grievance for the Punjab unit since it lost power in 2022 and the message from Delhi has been clear the leadership is not going to budge.

Arithmetic of the controversy is simple, although not so the politics. The Pradesh Congress Committee (PCC) has not removed Warring as its President. Partap Singh Bajwa continues as Leader of the Opposition in the Assembly. The former chief minister, who was defeated in the 2022 election in his own seat, Charanjit Singh Channi, has been given the campaign committee. Sukhjinder Singh Randhawa is getting the core committee. It's a piece of paper that appears to be designed to provide each senior leader with a job and a motive to remain engaged in the 2027 campaign. In reality, it has left the Channi-Randhawa camp with the impression that they have been given a job with no power and they have not been silent. Ten days ago, Channi welcomed almost fifty leaders at his residence in Morinda. Randhawa then held a second meeting in Mohali on the same day, no less that Baghel landed in Chandigarh. Next, a cluster of legislators, avoiding Baghel, flew to Delhi and presented their grievance directly before Mallikarjun Kharge, Rahul Gandhi and KC Venugopal, which is a clear indication that state-level mediation was not going to suffice this time, according to sources.

In response, Baghel has maintained a smile on her face and continues to meet people, one dinner, one lunch, and one cup of coffee at a time, refusing to answer any direct questions about factionalism. The calm is a cover story for a stiffer braincount at 24 Akbar Road. But if the high command were to rescind the Warring decision now, when Channi's camp has already taken to the streets expressing their dismay, it would appear as if the high command was bowing to street pressure just months before ticket distributions start. It would also inspire all the other state units that have similar frustrations bubbling under the surface. So far then, there was no change in leadership, there were channels open for grievances, but there was no rethinking of the actual appointments. In an interview with reporters, Bajwa's very own statement on Iran-United States talks as a positive precedent for peace in Punjab, underscored the gravity and the incongruity of the impasse.

The political terrain in which Congress finds itself in this moment is what is different from the one leading up to 2022. It is not merely to oppose the Aam Aadmi Party government but an opposition party with a mixed performance history and it has real fodder to chew on. Punjab's public debt is expected to exceed nearly four and a half lakh crore by the end of this financial year, which had more than doubled over the last 10 years from roughly two lakh crore in 2017. Nearly 29 thousand crore rupees are budgeted for interest payments for 2026-27, which equals nearly a quarter of the state's total revenue receipts before any school, hospital or road receives funding. States' fiscal deficit is exceeding the three per cent of the gross state domestic product (GSDP) limit set by the Sixteenth Finance Commission for the current year. The subsidies through the state power utility cost more than fifteen thousand crore rupees and the new income support scheme for women is another recurring commitment of the government of nine thousand crore rupees per year. In the early eighties, the per capita income of Punjab was the highest in the nation and now it is well behind that of neighbouring Haryana and its share of national GDP has fallen to less than two and a half percent. Groundwater tables have kept declining in spite of debt loads that are greater than the national average for farm households, a burden that has been exacerbated by free power for irrigation that no government has yet had the courage to eliminate.

That's what an opposition party might be creating in the second half this year, on jobs, on the fiscal squeeze, on why a State which used to lie at the top of the table of per capita incomes has fallen behind its neighbours. In the meantime, however, energy and airtime are being invested on who will be next to who in a photo, whether a "unity is strength" caption that is given by opposing groups has any meaning whatsoever. The longer the practice persists the more it becomes a tale of personalities than one of government failures that the Mann government has been hard pressed to explain. Congress workers on the ground those who will have to knock on doors next year are not getting a clear idea of who really represents the party in their district, in the head-to-head battle that goes on between the drawing rooms of Chandigarh and the corridors of Delhi.

Baghel's visit will come to an end at some point shortly, likely with a joint statement, some pics of the leaders shaking hands, and some nebulous assurances that consultation will take place about ticket distribution. No, it doesn't mean anything, it's just that it delays the debate over Punjab Congress till the list of candidates is confirmed, yet both issues are at their core about a party and a state living beyond its means although debt-servicing spreadsheets are a far more tangible concern.