As Neha Bora finds place on the big table, Congress leaders wonder if their pie shrinking

The visuals of AISA national president Neha Bora walking beside Congress leaders Priyanka Gandhi Vadra and Rahul Gandhi during the Opposition march to the Supreme Court on Monday, even as senior Congress leaders jostled to be in the same frame, have raised much chatter within the party and especially its students' wing NSUI (National Students' Union of India).

A large section within the NSUI wondered at the prominence given to Bora, the president of rival student outfit AISA (All India Students' Association of the CPI-ML), at what was not just a party protest but that of the larger INDIA bloc. Some even felt the NSUI had been made to "look small".

However, Congress leaders called it a smart move, with one of them who didn't want to be named saying: "With this, we have prevented the Cockroach Janta Party (CJP) from projecting itself as the fulcrum of the agitations. Neha Bora was earlier seen with them during the protests and also at a joint press conference. Now she was seen with the Congress leadership. So, the optics of it is that the Congress and INDIA bloc are at the forefront of this struggle."

Incidentally, as per sources, Gandhi is likely to meet office-bearers and coordinators of the NSUI, Youth Congress and Seva Dal for tea Thursday.

As part of the same balancing act, on Wednesday, INDIA bloc parties criticised the detention of senior CJP leaders after they tried to enter Jantar Mantar following its denotification as a protest site. The tone was set by Gandhi, who was earlier seen to be wary of the CJP, and who put out a tweet saying: "Students. Youth. Journalists. The INDIA bloc. Different banners, one cause. All protests are one: citizens demanding their constitutional rights."

The Congress's Left tilt

The unease over Bora is not entirely without reason. One constant trait of the Congress under the Gandhi siblings has been the party's soft corner for the Left. Several people from backgrounds in Left student organisations - including the SFI (Students' Federation of India of the CPI-M) and AISF (All India Students' Federation of the CPI) - have found key positions in the Congress in recent years.

They include Sandeep Singh, Mohit Pandey and Akbar Chaudhary - all AISA leaders and past presidents of the JNU Students' Union. Singh later became a part of Priyanka Vadra's team. Prasenjit Bose, who once ran the SFI in JNU, is also with the Congress now.

Kanhaiya Kumar, another former JNUSU president, with an AISF background, is in-charge of the NSUI. Incidentally, Kanhaiya has been feeling the heat lately, with questions being asked about whether he had been "sidelined" in the protests, especially after the poor performance of the NSUI in the recent Delhi University student polls that came right after the July Gen Z agitation.

On the other hand, even as Bora is now sharing the stage with the Congress top brass (she was also among the speakers at the INDIA bloc press conference on Tuesday), the AISA website continues to club the NSUI with the RSS's ABVP as "right-wing" and "anti-people".

Its manifesto section says: "Over the years, AISA has emerged as a popular Left students' organization struggling against the anti-student, anti-people, right-wing organizations like NSUI and ABVP."

Says a Congress leader: "When you have such a large student organisation like the NSUI, why do you need imports from AISA, which is largely strong only in JNU?... And how has importing so many Leftists from JNU helped the NSUI even in the university? The NSUI has no presence in JNU."

A Congress insider lamented that the party leadership was susceptible to the declamation of students with Leftist background, making them seem intellectually smarter than the NSUI's rank and file. "They are also adept at coining and raising slogans, and are more active than the NSUI on a regular basis," said a Congress worker.

Congress leaders also question the logic of aligning with an ideology that has been on a downward spiral electorally, and wonder if this is the best strategy at a time when the Congress is trying to regain its umbrella nature and lure fence-sitters among conservative Hindus, who are not comfortable with the Left's anti-religion ethos.

Widening the base

The section in the party that welcomes the Left-ward tilt, ironically, has a logic that is entirely the opposite: the fact that people of Left ideology are comfortable with the Congress, they say, indicates widening of the party's social base.

A Congress leader pointed to Gandhi's stress on the party being seen as inclusive, particularly of students and marginal groups. "Not just Neha Bora, he has repeatedly done press conferences with victims of police brutalities in these agitations, and those victims are not necessarily from the Congress," the leader said, adding that when Gen Z is the buzzword and Bora an emerging face among them, there can't be a stronger message to connect with the youth than welcoming her.

A Delhi professor with a background in AISA says there is now a natural progression of Left student leaders towards the Congress. "In times of liberalisation and social media, it is natural for some Left activists to feel they have been left behind compared to their counterparts. So, they shift to mainstream politics," the professor said.

Social media is a powerful elixir, he added, making instant heroes or villains. And being in the mainstream means having a bigger platform.