- Friday, April 26, 2024
By: Shubham Ghosh
Shubham Ghosh
RAHUL Gandhi, the former president of the Indian National Congress, turned 51 on Saturday (19). The man is no less a phenomenon in Indian politics despite his resume showing no significant electoral success since he first became a member of the Lok Sabha in 2004. The leader has led his party to humiliating defeats one after another in elections – national or state – but yet if there is one name which is mentioned before all as India’s most prominent Opposition leader, it is Rahul Gandhi.
The man is a punching bag for India’s pro-right media and political activists. It is often said that Rahul Gandhi’s political career has been decimated by the Narendra Modi phenomenon in Indian politics. It is also claimed that as long as Rahul Gandhi is around, Modi has no worries in continuing his tenure at the helm. This is something that also irks India’s other regional parties that are strong forces on their respective turfs but have to depend on the Congress when it comes to making a national alliance to take on Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). So Rahul Gandhi manages to remain in the thick of things because he belongs to the grand-old party which despite its massive fall, remains the only hope for India’s liberals against the Hindutva onslaught.
Rahul Gandhi is yet to find a place for himself
The tragedy with Rahul Gandhi is that he is yet to find a place for himself – not only in the country’s politics but even in his own party. Being a dynastic party, the Congress has always been dependent on the next generation to succeed the previous one. But that tradition has come to a halt with Rahul Gandhi who is still a bachelor. The Congress kept on hoping that like Indira Gandhi to Jawaharlal Nehru or Rajiv Gandhi to Indira or even Sonia Gandhi to the vacuum that was created after Rajiv’s untimely death, the question of succession never went unattended at its camp. But not with Rahul Gandhi who has simply not found the game the way his family, party and supporters would have loved to see.
At 51, Rahul Gandhi can’t still be ruled out of the race to become India’s prime minister one day, the fourth from the family. Even if Modi stays another 10 years in office, Rahul, who is 20 years younger than him, has time on his side. But there are certain factors that suggest that Rahul has a far more challenging terrain to cover if he aspires to reach the prime minister’s office one day.
First of all, Gandhi is a hesitant politician, at least the perception says so. The man is seen flying abroad on several occasions when his party needs him at home and that doesn’t help in reviving his image. He says that he is more focused on strengthening the Congress party’s organisation but the effort seems half-hearted each time. Rahul’s efforts in reviving the Congress’s organisation have not seen much success and it is evident from the fact that he is reluctant to become its president again.
Secondly, Gandhi doesn’t care about his image as a politician. He tries to project himself as an individual who believes in simplicity. He tries to push simple-sounding ideas, utter simplistic words and even tells his ideological opponents that no matter how much they mock him as “Pappu” (Mr Naïve), his heart is filled with love for them. This stance is praiseworthy but not effective to ensure success in India, at least politically and particularly in the era of Modi when optics have taken over everything as the primary condition for success.
Gandhi needs to train himself on the complications of Indian politics. What he does is speaking in black and white but the trick lies more on the grey side. More than speaking what he thinks is true, the Congress leader needs to speak smartly. Rahul Gandhi has also not been found to effective in making friends with other non-BJP parties and leaders and this seriously limits his chances to succeed as a political leader, or rather an alternative to Modi.
The Congress today has a big dilemma. It can’t hope any further that the Rahul Gandhi factor will bring it out of the mess that it is in. He has failed in elections after elections and with a number of young leaders now dumping the party to join the BJP, the trust in his capacity to script a turnaround is ever diminishing. But on the other hand, the party can’t also think of bringing in a non-Gandhi to lead it in the presence of Sonia, Rahul and Priyanka Gandhi (Vadra) as that could see it imploding. So that ultimately brings it back to square one and Rahul Gandhi remains its face. Since the Congress is the only other party with a national presence, a national Opposition is identified the most with Rahul Gandhi than anybody else. This is an obsession and it persists despite the repeated humiliation the man faces.
For the Congress and Rahul Gandhi himself, this vicious cycle is difficult to break, if not impossible.
