(This story originally appeared in on Dec 21, 2016)

MUMBAI: The grand old party, which is out of power at the Centre and in the state for the first time in over a decade, is having some trouble clearing its dues with a neighbourhood chai-wallah, who has now stopped supplying the daily brew on credit.Inder Joshi runs a small stall behind the headquarters of Mumbai Regional Congress Committee (MRCC) at Azad Maidan and he is the most preferred chai-wallah among party functionaries and supporters. He claims the party has an outstanding balance of Rs 2 lakh.“My family has been running the shop here for decades. They [the Congress] have not paid us since a long time and we have now stopped providing them tea on udhari,” he said. “However, I know they will eventually pay us eventually. They always do.”Even as Joshi spoke out about the party’s dues, a Congress worker tried to place an order for “the people in cabin no 2” of MRCC. Joshi had a simple answer: “Cash first, please.”Joshi, whose family moved from Gujarat decades ago, is also famous for his Gujarati snacks.MRCC president Sanjay Nirupam accepted that the party was yet to pay the tea vendor. “The issue of pending payment was brought to my notice a few weeks ago. The carelessness of one of our functionaries resulted in the dues. We had to pay the tea vendor Rs 4 lakh and we have already settled half the bill,” Nirupam said.“He makes good tea and he should have been paid. He was not paid for nearly four months. We will settle the bill soon.”There is a tea machine in the MRCC office, but most party members don’t like the beverage it dispenses. “I am agreat fan of tea and we used to get tea from outside. But people have started drinking lot of tea,” Nirupam said.Another Congress leader admitted that the party was facing a cash crunch. “Our party make fun of Prime Minister Narendra Modi , who once worked as a tea seller. But here we don’t have money to clear the chai-wallah’s bill,” the leader. He refused to be named as he is not authorised to speak to the media.Mirror had reported in July that the Congress is short of funds and has decided to run a “low-cost” campaign for next year’s BMC elections.While the BJP and the Shiv Sena are expected to set a promotion budget of over Rs 1crore for each candidate, hard-up Congress will allocate around Rs 50 lakh each to its contesting members, according to political observers.So instead of blanketing roadsides, airwaves and newspapers with ads or hiring a private agency to craft clever poll messages, the Congress decided to rely on old-school methods such as organising mohalla gatherings, taking out padyatras, staging protests and distributing pamphlets.