Who is Rahul Bondre, the leader Rahul Gandhi didn’t want to lose to BJP

He was set to join the BJP on Tuesday in the presence of Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis. Then Rahul Gandhi intervened.

Former Congress MLA Rahul Bondre turned visibly emotional after Maharashtra Congress chief Harshvardhan Sapkal connected him to the Leader of Opposition (LoP), telling him: “Now that you have called, I will stand with you in this fight, no matter how much I will have to lose,” Bondre told Gandhi on the phone. Later, he posted on social media, “Ready to sacrifice everything in this fight standing with Rahul Gandhi.”

Gandhi, it is learnt, assured Bondre that the party not only stood with him, but would extend every possible help to counter the BJP’s “intimidating tactics”. When Bondre told him about his recent losses, Gandhi told him, “To win, you must lose sometimes.”

Bondre is a two-term Congress MLA from Chikhli in western Vidarbha’s Buldhana district. He won the seat in 2009 and 2014, but lost to BJP’s Shweta Mahale in 2019 (by 6,810 votes) and 2024 (3201 votes). One of the prominent and last remaining Lingayat faces of Maharashtra Congress, Bondre comes from a political family that has been loyal to the Congress for generations.

Bondre’s fight with the BJP inevitably involved Fadnavis, as MLA Shweta Mahale’s husband Vidyadhar Mahale is a senior official in the CM’s office. Both Bondre and Mahale were involved in a war of words during the recently held local body polls. The Congress leader had complained against Mahale for participating in the BJP’s poll campaign despite being a government official.

Bondre is associated with several credit societies, educational institutions, and cotton mill. According to sources, Bondre has been facing continuous inquiries, notices over his business interests for several years now. Even in his video a day before, Bondre had refrained from attacking the Congress leadership and instead maintained that he has no complaints against anyone.

The move of inducting Bondre in the BJP was also seen as an attempt to destabilise Sapkal who has been aggressively attacking the Mahayuti government in general and CM Fadnavis in particular.

“If a leader from his home district is leaving the Congress, fingers will be pointed at Sapkal. He will come under criticism for not being able to control his own district,” said a Congress leader privy to the developments within the party.

Bondre and Sapkal both come from Buldhana district and have maintained a cordial relationship for several years now. It was Bondre first who had congratulated Sapkal when he became the state Congress chief. For months, Sapkal was constantly supporting Bondre against the pressure tactics used on him.

The night before Bondre’s planned entry into the BJP, Sapkal requested Rahul Gandhi to have a word with him. “In last several years, many big Congress leaders — including former Chief Minister Ashok Chavan — have left the party. In some cases, the leaders had claimed proximity to the Gandhis, while some boasted about their family lineage. In none of the instances, did Gandhi try to stop those leaders. But in this case he did it as requested by Sapkal.

The Maharashtra Congress chief has been Gandhi’s pick for the job. Be it the party’s organisational overhaul or keeping the Congress alive with protests, Sapkal has been steering the party in a demanding and difficult time. If Gandhi calling Bondre, a district level leader, to ask him to not quit the party has surprised many within Congress, the move has raised Sapkal’s stature within the organisation further, sources said.

Alok Deshpande is a Special Correspondent with The Indian Express' Mumbai bureau, reco... Read More