Meet Congress’s new Tamil Nadu face Manickam Tagore: Rahul Gandhi aide who bet big on Vijay

If Selvaperunthagai represented continuity with the DMK, Tagore became one of the earliest and loudest advocates of leaving it. Long before the Assembly election, Tagore openly argued the Congress should seek a larger political role instead of remaining a junior ally. He demanded a greater share of Assembly seats, raised questions over sharing power, and was among the first Congress leaders to suggest the party should explore an alliance with Vijay’s TVK. At the time, those arguments unsettled both the DMK and sections within his own party.

Party leaders say the leadership change had been expected for weeks. A section of Congress leaders in Tamil Nadu, along with senior figures in New Delhi, had grown increasingly dissatisfied with Selvaperunthagai’s stewardship. While Tagore and several others argued the Congress should reposition itself alongside the TVK, Selvaperunthagai remained committed to preserving the DMK alliance.

“He was one of those people who had played a pivotal role in securing power for the Congress in Tamil Nadu. That has played a role in Tagore’s elevation to state president,” said a state Congress leader.

The disagreement gradually evolved into a larger contest over the future direction of the party. Even after the Congress entered the TVK government, Selvaperunthagai often appeared politically out of step with his own organisation. On Friday, a day before his replacement, he criticised Vijay for mocking former CM M K Stalin in the Assembly, and questioned the government’s administrative performance despite the Congress being a coalition partner.

The criticism only reinforced the perception that his tenure had reached its conclusion. Officially, Selvaperunthagai had already requested the high command to relieve him. He maintained he had decided before the Assembly election not to continue as state president. But his tenure had also been marked by persistent internal dissent.

Senior leaders including Tagore and Karur MP S Jothimani questioned the transparency of candidate selection during the Assembly election. Several functionaries accused the state leadership of surrendering the Congress’s bargaining position in the DMK alliance.

The change also reflects the Congress high command’s internal equations. Party leaders said Selvaperunthagai never enjoyed Rahul Gandhi’s full confidence, unlike his equation with Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge. Rahul largely kept his distance, neither granting him audience for a prolonged period nor making Tamil Nadu a sustained political priority, limiting his visits to brief campaign appearances during the 2024 Lok Sabha and 2026 Assembly elections.

Selvaperunthagai himself had acknowledged that shifting political equations after the Congress joined the TVK government made it difficult for him to continue leading the state unit.

His own political trajectory reflected the layered nature of Tamil Nadu politics. Having entered the Congress after earlier stints in other parties, including the VCK, he never entirely acquired the confidence of all sections within the organisation despite becoming the state Congress chief in February 2024.

The contrast with Tagore is striking. A three-time Virudhunagar MP, Tagore is regarded as one of Rahul Gandhi’s trusted lieutenants in Tamil Nadu and is also known to be close to AICC general secretary K C Venugopal, one of the Congress leadership’s principal political managers.

Inside the party, Tagore has long been viewed as a leader whose political messaging reflects Delhi’s evolving thinking more than the calculations of the state unit. His appointment therefore signals not merely organisational restructuring but the consolidation of the Rahul Gandhi-Venugopal camp in Tamil Nadu.

Tagore’s political rise has been methodical. Born in Sivaganga in 1975 and trained in law, he climbed steadily through the National Students’ Union of India and Indian Youth Congress (IYC) before assuming organisational responsibilities at the national level, including election commissioner of the IYC and chairman of its Central Election Authority.

Unlike many Congress leaders in Tamil Nadu, however, Tagore has often seemed more comfortable provoking political arguments than preserving political comfort. His repeated criticism of the DMK’s treatment of the Congress frequently irritated the former alliance partner. The DMK’s IT wing and Tagore regularly exchanged public barbs over seat-sharing, coalition politics and the Congress’s status inside the alliance.

Yet the argument he consistently advanced – that the Congress should stop behaving like a permanent junior partner – eventually became the party’s own strategy. Leaders familiar with the negotiations say Tagore was among those who secured three additional Assembly seats for the Congress during negotiations with the DMK before the election. Although the party eventually accepted 28 constituencies and won five, the larger political objective evolved differently after the fractured verdict produced Tamil Nadu’s first coalition government in decades.

For months, Tagore, alongside policy strategist Praveen Chakravarthy, had argued internally that Vijay’s emergence represented a structural shift in Tamil Nadu politics rather than merely another actor entering the Dravidian contest. Within the Congress, very few leaders shared that assessment so early. Now the party itself appears to have embraced it.

Despite periodically changing presidents, the party continues to possess a disproportionately influential parliamentary leadership compared to its organisational strength on the ground. It still produces articulate parliamentarians, energetic spokespersons and skilled negotiators in Delhi. But building an independent grassroots machinery remains its unresolved challenge.

Tagore takes charge at a moment when the Congress has entered the state government with ministers in the Cabinet after decades, yet still depends heavily on alliances for electoral relevance. His immediate task will be to strengthen the party inside the TVK-led coalition while preparing it for local body elections and the next Lok Sabha contest. Whether organisational renewal follows the leadership change remains uncertain.