"6 Consecutive Poll Losses...": Ex-Odisha MLA Complains To Sonia Gandhi

Moquim's laundry list of complaints included not being granted a meeting with Rahul Gandhi for "almost three years". "This is not a personal grievance," he declared.

12 Dec 2025, 10:36 · www.ndtv.com

New Delhi:

An Odisha Congress leader has written to Sonia Gandhi asking for the party to undergo "open-heart surgery (and) deep structural and ideological renewal" and warned of a "century-old legacy slipping away – not through defeat by others, but through decisions within our own walls".

In a five-page letter sent December 8, Mohammed Moquim, the ex-MLA from Barabati-Cuttack – who was barred from contesting the 2024 Odisha election after a lower court convicted him of corruption – lamented six consecutive defeats in Odisha and a hat-trick of Lok Sabha poll defeats, as well as in Bihar, Delhi, Haryana, Maharashtra, and Jammu and Kashmir since 2024.

Moquim's laundry list of complaints included not being granted a meeting with Rahul Gandhi - to whom a copy of the letter was sent - for "almost three years". "This is not a personal grievance... but a reflection of a wider emotional disconnect felt by workers across India (who feel) unseen and unheard".

And, in a significant paragraph buried mid-way through the letter, he named Shashi Tharoor – who signed a similar letter to Sonia Gandhi back in 2020 as part of the 'G-23' – as candidates who "among others (should) form the core leadership of the party going forward".

Interestingly, two of the other names mentioned – DK Shivakumar from Karnataka and Sachin Pilot from Rajasthan – made headlines after challenging established Congress leaders in their states – Siddaramaiah and Ashok Gehlot, both of whom are seen as being close to the Gandhis.

A third name he mentioned was Rahul Gandhi's sister, Priyanka Gandhi Vadra, now the Wayanad Lok Sabha MP and someone who many within the Congress had repeatedly called on to take a more prominent national role.

"Madam, it is with a deep sense of anguish that I write to you today," Moquim began, "… recent outcomes in Bihar, Delhi, Haryana (all of which the BJP won)… are not just electoral setbacks; they reflect a deeper organisational disconnect. A series of wrong decisions, misguided leadership choices, and the concentration of responsibility in the wrong hands have weakened the party from within."

"If we do not wake up now, we risk losing the Congress we inherited."

The party has not yet responded to this broadside from Odisha.

Moquim also questioned the choice of Mallikarjun Kharge as the party boss, complaining the 83-year-old veteran "is unable to resonate with India's youth (i.e., those below the age of 35, per his classification)" and who, he said, account for nearly 65 per cent of the total population.

This "deep and growing disconnect between the Congress leadership and the Indian youth", he declared, was responsible for "promising young leaders like Jyotiraditya Scindia and Himanta Biswa Sarma" quitting the party. Scindia and Sarma quit the Congress in 2020 and 2014, respectively, over disagreements with the party's central leadership and then joined the BJP.

In Scindia's case, the switch brought down the Congress' Madhya Pradesh government and, in the case of Sarma, the party has been all but wiped out across the entire northeast.

Moquim, who was also in the February race to become the Congress' state unit boss, pointed to the party's massive defeat in last month's Nuapada Assembly seat bypoll – which the BJP's Jay Dholakia won by over 80,000 votes – as further evidence of the people losing confidence.

The letter could have hardly come at a worse time for the Congress, which is battling a leadership crisis in Karnataka, one of only three states it now rules on its own.

Chief Minister Siddaramaiah faces a hostile takeover bid from his deputy, DK Shivakumar, a bid festering since the party won the 2023 election and picked the former over DKS.

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