What's Rahul Gandhi planning amid buzz over absence from CJP-Wangchuk protest

LEader of oppositeness Rahul indira nehru gandhi has non visited activistic Sonam Wangchuk who's on hungriness strike at the Cockroach Janta Party protest at Jantar Mantar for almost three weeks now, and that absence has become its own story — drawing jibes from Wangchuk himself, then a lengthy defence from a Congress leader, plus a shot at some perspective by CJP's founder on X.Amid the chatter, the Congress leader's actual itinerary points elsewhere, towards the next event of his own campaign on the same issues, also demanding Union education minister Dharmendra Pradhan's resignation over paper leaks and exam-related irregularities.A month after its launch in Rajasthan's Kota, Rahul's event series ‘Chhatron Ki Goonj’ will see its next show in Dehradun on July 17, at a venue changed at short notice after the state administration withdrew its earlier clearance. Uttarakhand Congress unit president Ganesh Godiyal confirmed on Wednesday that the Dehradun event, originally planned for Parade Ground, will now be held at Bannu School ground. He told reporters that the party had deposited fees and secured permission for July 15, 16 and 17, only for the administration to cancel it citing the extension of another event at the ground.The state and Centre's ruling BJP accused Congress of playing a “false victim card” over the dispute.The campaign Rahul is runningRahul Gandhi launched ‘Chhatron Ki Goonj’ (Echoing Voice of Students) from Kota on June 17. Three follow-up events — Prayagraj, Patna and Delhi — were deferred after Gandhi reportedly extended a foreign trip. The BJP took digs at it, even implying a “foreign conspiracy”.Gandhi's first reported engagement upon return was a meeting with Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge and general secretary (organisation) KC Venugopal on July 14 evening, reportedly on issues in the party's Punjab unit.Not far away from there, Wangchuk's fast continued, under the banner of the CJP protest that began on June 28 over the same paper-leak and NEET-related grievances. Wangchuk has refused to end the fast, despite being in “immense pain”, with his weight loss now past 8 kg.Dipke reframes the questionCJP founder Abhijeet Dipke, in a post on X on Wednesday morning, pushed back on the “where is Rahul” narrative altogether. Rather than asking why opposition leaders or CJP's own team members weren't fasting alongside Wangchuk, he said, “ask the questions that actually matter”.“Why is the Prime Minister refusing to engage in a dialogue? Why is the Education Minister still not being held accountable? These are the questions that deserve answers, not distractions that only help shield those in power from accountability,” he wrote on X. Also read | ‘Apolitical’ Cockroach protest caught between absent Rahul, indifferent Modi govtDipke separately thanked a string of opposition leaders, including Samajwadi Party's Akhilesh Yadav, NCP's Rohit Pawar and TMC chief Mamata Banerjee, for either visiting the site or extending solidarity. Congress MP Shashi Tharoor was among those who got a thank-you note for expressing solidarity and promising to raise their issues in Parliament.Wangchuk, however, told Indian Express Hindi a day earlier that it would reflect “great pettiness” if top Opposition leaders stayed away.He was asked pointedly about Rahul Gandhi, and he said the public would “reject” leaders who did not express solidarity over genuine issues.Mevani's rebuttal, Rahul's past recordThis framing drew a response from Gujarat Congress Working President Jignesh Mevani on X, as he rejected the idea that Congress had ignored the protest. He said the party had not once blamed Wangchuk or the protesting youth.Mevani underlined that that the Congress's student wing NSUI and Youth Congress faced water cannons and lathis while protesting paper leaks in Haryana, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and other states. He pointed to Rahul Gandhi's ‘Chhatron Ki Goonj’ too, as a nationwide outreach across 28 cities. He said this was evidence that the Congress was “walking with the youth every step”.Mevani also listed instances of Rahul Gandhi's past engagement with grieving families and affected communities across issues, from the Mandsaur farmer killings, Wayanad's landslide victims, and others, including students affected by recent issues.“Consistent solidarity without turning grief into spectacle,” he wrote.He also said the Congress protests and Wangchuk's fast should to be seen as complementary rather than competing.Rahul Gandhi has in the past spoken out for Ladakh's statehood movement, too, which Wangchuk co-led and was even jailed over for six months recently. Earlier, in 2024, after Delhi Police detained Wangchuk and around 100 other Ladakhis during their march to the capital over Ladakh-rekated demands, Rahul Gandhi called the detentions “unacceptable”.A year later, after police firing in Leh killed four people on September 24, 2025, and Wangchuk was detained under the National Security Act, Gandhi said the government had “betrayed the people of Ladakh” and demanded a judicial inquiry into the deaths. Wangchuk was released from Jodhpur jail on March 14, 2026.A structural differenceAs for the Jantar Mantar protest now, there's been a visible shift in how it's been projected by the CJP, an outfit founded online in May and named thus, satirically, after the Chief Justice of India made some remarks.Dipke, a former social media strategist for the AAP, has said from the protest's outset that it “does not depend on any political party”. At one point he told reporters, “We don't want existing parties to come." He also spoke about how bringing in Rahul Gandhi or defeating Narendra Modi would “not mean much”.Dipke's older X posts lampooning Rahul's ‘Bharat Jodo Yatra’ have also gone viral, as has Wangchuk's past exchange of compliments with Dharmendra Pradhan from 2023.Also read | How Modi govt's equation with Sonam Wangchuk collapsed: From ‘wonderful conversation’ to Jantar MantarThough, the CJP's statedly “non-political” or apolitical position has since eased to welcome leaders who arrive without party flags, and the protest has drawn visits or solidarity statements from Left leaders, TMC's Mahua Moitra and Mamata Banerjee, Shiv Sena (UBT)'s Uddhav Thackeray, Samajwadi Party's Akhilesh Yadav, NCP's Rohit Pawar, AAP's Sanjay Singh and Atishi, besides some Congress MPs. AAP's Arvind Kejriwal is to visit on Thursday.What next by Congress, CJPRahul Gandhi's Dehradun event is set to go ahead at Bannu School ground on July 17, with four more city legs of ‘Chhatron Ki Goonj’ reportedly planned before Independence Day, August 15.The CJP, meanwhile, has said it expects a response from the Modi government by July 20, the opening day of Parliament's Monsoon Session. It has planned a march from Jantar Mantar to Parliament that day.