Sonia Gandhi’s assertion that she is the full-fledged president of the Congress might have silenced dissenters within the party but it is Rahul Gandhi who is acting as the functional head and is undoubtedly the supreme leader whether he holds any position or not.

Though his return as the party president is expected with the culmination of organisational elections by September-October next year, Rahul is both the key arbitrator and final authority even now.

This was manifested yet again on Friday when Uttarakhand veteran Harish Rawat met Rahul in Delhi and vowed to work for the party, bringing the curtains down on speculation about his retirement or exit just before the election.

After meeting Rahul, Rawat told the media: “I will lead the Congress in the Assembly election.” This means it was Rahul who resolved the differences and took the decision about Rawat being the party’s face for the Uttarakhand elections.

Rawat wasn’t declared the chief-ministerial candidate but his supremacy in state politics was underlined. It was also decided to appoint a senior leader as observer for the polls, assuaging the hurt feeling of the former chief minister about state in-charge Devender Rawat trying to undercut him.

Rawat had himself expressed his sense of hurt publicly, wondering if it was time to retire because he was not given a free hand by the party. He talked about being fettered at a time he had to “swim across the sea of elections” and also hinted at non-cooperation by the organisational machinery.

Rahul intervened swiftly to defuse the crisis even as it was Sonia’s job as “fullfledged” president to handle it.

It was Rahul who picked Charanjit Singh Channi as the chief minister of Punjab. At the mega Jaipur rally against price rise a few days ago, Rahul was the key speaker and Sonia didn’t address the gathering despite being present. It is he, not Sonia or the Congress Working Committee, who undertook the onerous task of leading the political discourse differentiating between Hinduism and Hindutva.

There are no misgivings in the party as to who holds the reins and there are no objections either even as the majority of leaders and workers would like his formal return sooner than later.

He also responded to the report that quoted Rajiv Ranjan Mishra, the director-general of the National Mission for Clean Ganga and head of the Namami Gange project, as saying “Ganga became an easy dumping ground for the dead” during the second wave of Covid. The government didn’t acknowledge this despite disturbing photographs of bodies strewn around the riverbed and floating in the Ganga, attracting global attention.

Rahul tweeted: “The truth of those who died of Covid is flowing with the tide of the Ganga. Hiding this is impossible. The first step towards justice will be paying compensation to the families of the victims.”