What Rahul Needs To Do To Succeed
Rahul gandhi is a dynast. He aspires to be a democrat. A few days from now, he will take over as the chief of the Indian National Congress, carrying forward the family legacy.
When he started off in his political career, he came off as a well-meaning “social entrepreneur” kind of activist. Most of his activities in Amethi and surroundings was handled by hand-picked family loyalists who were also social entrepreneurs.
While Rahul’s experiment was labelled as a “lab to land” kind of effort, he travelled extensively. To understand Dalit politics, and the rise of the Bahujan Samaj Party in Uttar Pradesh, he would meet the likes of professor Sudha Pai. He also had the bright idea of democratising the institutional structure of Congress, whereby he roped in former Election Commissioners. The idea didn’t quite take off.
While the Sonia Gandhi-led Congress succeeded in making Manmohan Singh the Prime Minister for two successive terms, Rahul’s first big test, as a leader, was the 2014 parliamentary elections (where Sonia continued to be active). Rahul was tested in various state elections as well. The score card, however, was not encouraging for the 47-year-old leader.
After his relatively successful recent US visit, there is a new spring in Rahul’s strides. He is leading from the front in Gujarat, where he’s striking alliances with the disaffected sections of youth.
What’s more important, Rahul has been meeting a lot more traders’ associations, farmers, microfinance companies, startup CEOs and global foreign institutional investors. As he takes on the Modi government on the economy — largely jobs creation, GST and demonetisation — he’s even getting a crash course from the Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy (CMIE). Rahul recently requested for a meeting with the CMIE economists.
At a larger level, Rahul and the Congress claim that the terms of reference have been successfully changed by the Congress scion. Instead of politics, national pride, or Modi’s agenda, joblessness and economy have taken centre stage. So, has Rahul Gandhi finally arrived?
Look at Gujarat which is giving a fighting chance to the Congress. While the state Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is never apologetic about Hindutva, Rahul had to take recourse to soft Hindutva, in the run-up to the polls. Does he have enough footsoldiers in the state? Aren’t Hardik Patel, Jignesh Mevani and Alpesh Thakore one with Rahul only in their common objective to defeat the BJP?
Here’s a charter for Rahul Gandhi if he wants to put up a semblance of fight against Narendra Modi’s BJP:
Empower state leaders: Karnataka and Punjab are the only states where the Congress appears to be comfortable. This is largely due to the local state leaderships. This idea must be taken forward.
Young ideas can come from just anyone: Rahul likes to be called a youth leader, just as his comrades like to be called Young Turks. But then, no one quite connects with the youth the way 67-year-old Modi does. At another level, Rahul would need some of the experienced leaders of the Congress more than ever before as the party readies for a transition.
It’s the economy, yes: In a young, aspirational country, it’s the economy that matters. However, if a party or a leader makes light of a Moody’s upgrade, people see through the game. Talk about joblessness or GST glitches, but also do give credit where it’s due.
