Waiting for Rahul

AT last the Congress Party is gearing itself up to elect a new president, in place of Sonia Gandhi, who has served the organisation rather well these last 19 years. On Monday, the Congress Working Committee announced a detailed election schedule, according to which the party should have a new chief latest by December 19. It is reassuring to see the oldest political party in the country still going  through the motion of electing formally a president. It is widely understood that Rahul Gandhi’s name would be on the ballot, just as it is also believed that he may be the sole candidate to be proposed for the post. Even in the unlikely event of a contest, Rahul Gandhi’s victory is already cast in stone.

Much to the surprise of many Congressmen across the land, Rahul Gandhi seems to have turned a corner these last few months. Ever since his address at Berkeley two months ago, he appears to have re-invented himself. He has already mastered the art of barking and biting in the social media space, pitting himself headlong against the larger-than-life political persona of Prime Minister Narendra Modi. An overbearing and super-arrogant BJP establishment, too, has helped his cause enormously; when at Berkeley Rahul Gandhi put a gloss on the ‘dynasty’ syndrome, more than a dozen Cabinet ministers were unleashed on Rahul Gandhi. Suddenly, he was no longer the “pappu” to be ridiculed; the BJP political offensive, overnight, elevated Rahul Gandhi to the principal Opposition leader in the country. And, now in an I-have-nothing-to-lose strategy, Rahul Gandhi has pitched his tent in the Gujarat battlefield, showing a hitherto unsuspected capacity for hand-to-hand combat and a willingness to shed his milky-white complexion.

Getting himself elected as the president of the Indian National Congress may be the easy part for Rahul Gandhi; getting himself accepted as a serious, engaged and committed leader is altogether a different and more difficult proposition. The bruising battle of 2014 must have taught him a bitter lesson in the art of entitlement in these times of democratic assertiveness. Rahul Gandhi still has to demonstrate the stamina of a long-distance runner before he can hope to earn the nation’s respect and the electorate’s affection.