Lucknow: The recent organisational rejig in UP Congress is more than a routine change of roles, believe party insiders. To some of them, the changes speak for ‘the party moving towards a new set of leaders, seen as closer to Rahul Gandhi, to steer the UP unit ahead of the 2027 Assembly elections.’“While the meteoric rise of new in charge Rajendra Pal Gautam – who left AAP to join Congress – is already a talking point among old-timers with references to Gautam’s proximity with Rahul, murmurs that newly appointed deputies given to him are handpicked by the Rae Bareli MP are doing the rounds,” a senior organisational member told TOI.To note, on Aug 6, All India Congress Committee general secretary appointed Abhishek Dutt, Kunal Choudhary, Jagdish Chander Jangid, Sanjeev Arya, Varun Choudhary and Abdul Hannan as AICC secretaries attached to AICC in charge. The party also appreciated the outgoing in-charges – Dheeraj Gurjar, Nilanshu Chaturvedi, Pradeep Narwal, Rajesh Tiwari, Satyanarayan Patel and Tauquir Alam.“All the six co-in-charges given a role in UP were groomed by Rahul under the Youth Congress Transformation Programme. Launched in 2006 from Punjab, this programme aimed to raise young leadership in the grand old party,” said a functionary, adding, “This exercise was based on performance… Those who do well grow up the ranks in the Congress organization. And all the co-in-charges for UP have walked past this route.”During the 2022 state elections, Priyanka Gandhi and her team were at the helm of affairs in UP though her journey began in 2019 with the role of general secretary in charge of eastern UP. With her came a group of young leaders who over time became an important and effective link between Priyanka and UP. The main man in Team Priyanka was Sandeep Singh – former Jawaharlal Nehru University Students’ Union president.“As personal secretary to Priyanka, Sandeep exuded influence and controlled matters in ways which upset scores of old-timers besides turning certain functionaries virtually redundant,” said a former departmental head in UPCC, adding that the new appointments have edged Team Priyanka out.Adding that two of Singh’s associates – Pradeep Narwal and Tauqeer Alam – were also from JNU and were later appointed as AICC secretaries along with Dheeraj Gurjar, he further said, “Together they completed the coterie (that also had Mohit Pandey and Anil Yadav in the wider team) which became involved in all the key decisions and was accused of causing infighting and factionalism inside India’s politically significant state unit.”Brushing this debate aside, UP Congress in charge Rajendra Pal Gautam said, “All this is bogus. There are no camps. Congress is one party. Those saying this are peddling propaganda.” UP Congress president Ajay Rai said, “These so-called interpretations appear to be manufactured propaganda planted by BJP to dampen our high spirits ahead of the 2027 elections. They have failed on all fronts and are now using rumour mills to create confusion in our base. But they will not succeed.”