The brand is broken. It’s not just that the product isn’t selling; it’s that the internal QA team keeps leaking the fail logs to the press. For the Indian National Congress, the "product" has been Rahul Gandhi for nearly two decades, and the "engineers"—the senior leadership—are tired of pretending the latest patch fixed the underlying bugs.

Politics usually demands a certain level of performative sycophancy. You clap when the boss speaks, even if the boss is reading the room with the accuracy of a broken GPS. But lately, the mask hasn’t just slipped; it’s been stomped on. From Navjot Kaur Sidhu’s loud-mouthed theatrics to Mani Shankar Aiyar’s high-brow snark, the internal critique of Rahul Gandhi has moved from hushed whispers in Lutyens’ drawing rooms to full-blown public roasts.

Take Navjot Kaur Sidhu. He’s the political equivalent of a high-energy software demo that crashes your entire system. When he wasn't busy hugging Pakistani generals or reciting poetry, he was systematically dismantling the Congress’s grip on Punjab. His criticism of Rahul wasn't always a direct hit to the face, but it was a constant, buzzing static. He positioned himself as the "only honest man" in a room full of compromise, effectively telling the leadership their strategy was garbage. The price tag for that little ego trip? The loss of a border state and the total collapse of the party’s organizational spine in the north. Sidhu didn’t just criticize the leadership; he treated Rahul’s directives like "Terms and Conditions" agreements—things you click "Accept" on without ever intending to read, let alone follow.

Then there’s Mani Shankar Aiyar. He’s the legacy code. The guy who remembers the original syntax from the 70s and 80s and can’t understand why the modern UI is such a mess. Aiyar’s critiques are often wrapped in the kind of elitist condescension that makes the "pappu" narrative impossible to kill. Every time he opens his mouth to offer "advice" or reflection on the Gandhi dynasty’s divine right to rule, he inadvertently highlights the vacuum where a modern strategy should be. His insistence on the Nehru-Gandhi centralism is, in itself, a critique of Rahul’s inability to actually hold that center. He’s the emeritus professor pointing out that the current CEO doesn’t quite have his grandfather's grip on the board.

But the real friction isn't just about personalities. It’s about the "G-23"—that group of twenty-three senior leaders who basically sent a "Cc: Everyone" email to the high command back in 2020. They didn’t just want a new logo; they wanted a total rewrite of the operating system. People like Kapil Sibal and Ghulam Nabi Azad weren’t just venting. They were documenting a decade of electoral insolvency. Sibal eventually walked, basically saying the party wasn’t interested in the truth. It was the ultimate "I quit" post on LinkedIn, citing "cultural misalignment."

The trade-off here is brutal. The Congress remains a family business in an era of aggressive, data-driven political startups. Every time a Sidhu or an Aiyar goes rogue, it proves the central authority has lost its "admin" privileges. You can’t run a national campaign when your regional managers are publicly questioning the intelligence of the head office.

The Bharat Jodo Yatra was supposed to be the great Version 4.0 launch. A rebranding. A way to show Rahul as the man of the people, sweat-stained and relatable. And yet, the internal reviews are still coming in at one star. The criticism from within isn't about policy—it’s about viability. It’s the realization among the rank and file that the "Gandhi" name, once the ultimate encryption key for Indian power, might now be a legacy format that most of the country can no longer open.

The party’s response to this dissent has been consistent: ignore the bug report, ban the user, and keep shipping the same code. They treat internal criticism like a virus to be quarantined rather than feedback to be integrated. It’s a bold strategy, if your goal is to see how long a legacy brand can survive on nostalgia and debt.

How many more "re-launches" can one brand survive before the shareholders realize the prototype is the final version?