NEW DELHI: Last week, pictures of Rahul Gandhi paying tributes at Rajghat, clad in a T-shirt in the biting cold of Delhi, raised more political temperature than he could manage while traversing 3,000km during the 100 days of his Bharat Jodo Yatra. However, he did court a fair share of controversies during his cross-country march in the last three months that have revitalised ‘brand Rahul Gandhi’ ahead of the 2024 polls.
In the most recent war of words, senior party colleague Salman Khurshid likened Rahul to Lord Ram earlier this week, giving enough fodder to his political adversaries in the BJP to launch a scathing attack on the Congress.
Though Rahul’s campaign managers vehemently deny that the yatra aims to carry out an image makeover, party leaders do agree that it has given him more mass appeal and helped in shedding the tag of the ‘reckless politician’ that was stuck on him for a long time. The BJP’s constant taunts of him being a ‘shahzada’ (prince) and a reluctant prince of Indian politics have been dented quite a bit with this people-connect exercise.At 52, Rahul is aware that he has to find his political groove now or perish along with the Congress.
As the son, grandson, and great-grandson of three former prime ministers — Rajiv Gandhi, Indira Gandhi and Jawaharlal Nehru — Rahul has been targeted for his inherited political legacy. He joined electoral politics in 2004, winning from the family’s bastion, Amethi, in Uttar Pradesh. In 2013, he was appointed as the Congress vice president. The next year, the party saw its worst electoral performance, getting reduced to 44 seats in the general election. Rahul became the Congress president in December 2017, and the party saw signs of revival in 2018 with wins in Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh, though it lost some states.
However, after the rout of the Congress in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, Rahul quit the president’s post. Despite pressure from his party colleagues to return as the Congress chief, he remained adamant on his decision.Now that the party has a non-Gandhi at the helm of affairs at the national level, it may be looking to pit Rahul as the prime challenger to Prime Minister Narendra Modi in the Lok Sabha polls.AICC general secretary Jairam Ramesh echoes the view. “The yatra has brought the real Rahul Gandhi to the fore,” he said.
During his march, Rahul also turned philosophical in his quest to connect with people. “I let go of Rahul Gandhi years ago. He is in your mind, not mine,” the Wayanad MP said at a public interaction. Rahul’s comment that he is “opening a shop of love in the market of hatred” also seems to have struck a chord with people. Participation of celebrities from various fields, including actors Pooja Bhatt, Riya Sen and Amol Palekar, activists like Medha Patkar and Opposition leaders such as Shiv Sena’s Aaditya Thackeray and NCP’s Supriya Sule, and former RBI governor Raghuram Rajan, have given muscle to the yatra, which is expected to give a lifeline to the party’s sagging fortunes.
However, only time will tell whether Rahul’s footslogging will be a game changer for the party in the coming two years, which come packed with Assembly elections and the crucial Lok Sabha polls.One of the major criticisms faced by Rahul has been distancing the yatra from electoral calculations. While many observers feel that it was an ill-conceived move by him to skip the Gujarat poll campaign, the win in Himachal Pradesh came as a saving grace for the party.
Though Rahul has emerged as a staunch challenger to the BJP’s Hindutva politics through the rally, he has uphill tasks ahead after the yatra winds up on January 26 in Jammu and Kashmir. Questions are being raised about whether Rahul can sustain the political momentum that he has achieved through the exercise. His sudden acts of disappearing from the radar have often landed the Congress in uncomfortable situations, and the cadre hopes that he emerges as the pivot of Opposition in the run-up to the 2024 elections. For now, he is basking in the balmy sunlight of popularity. So what if some days come covered with fog.