Rahul Gandhi has made a fool of himself by rehashing Sahara bribery charges against Narendra Modi

Get set, no I can't go. That's Rahul Gandhi for you.

In yet another hit-and-miss opportunity, the Congress vice-president, who after his sensational claims of exposing Prime Minister Narendra Modi, once again proved he has no real ammo, as always.

Yes, he did speak (did he really have to do it?) and level charges of corruption against the PM, but are those allegations powerful enough to explode Modi's balloon? Is it going to cause any political earthquake?

Hell, no.

Gandhi, speaking at Modi's home turf in Gujarat's Mehsana, accused him of having  taken money from the Sahara and Birla groups. According to the Congress vice-president, in the I-T records there are notings of Sahara officials' claims that they had paid money to Modi (close to Rs 40 crore) nine times between October 2013 and February 2014.

He also said the documents in this regard were with I-T department which had raided the company when Modi was Gujarat chief minister. Similarly, as per documents with the income tax department, the Birla group also paid Rs 12 crore to Modi when he was chief minister.

Gandhi couldn't help but wonder as to why there has been no probe in the matter so far. This doesn't really look like an intelligent move. Not that we expect anything intelligent from Gandhi, but he could have at least taken into consideration the Supreme Court's recent snub to well-known lawyer Prashant Bhushan.

The apex court had said it would not hear a PIL filed by NGO Common Cause, represented by Bhushan, which sought an SIT probe into alleged payoffs to politicians, including Modi, unless some clear evidence was placed to back the allegations. The SC had, in  fact, dismissed it as "hawala papers" with "zero material" and only "insinuations".

Now, unless the I-T department comes out with the "incriminating papers", which Gandhi seems to be pinning his hopes on, the show in Mehsana will only bring more jibes Gandhi's way. 

It's sad that Rahul Gandhi comes off as an unsure and reluctant prince who is out to do good, but doesn't know how to. His criticism of PM Modi ought to be sharper, more timely and less gimmicky, but unfortunately, that's hardly the case. While it's important that Gandhi has decided to attack the BJP and PM Modi himself where it hurts the most - the plank of anti-corruption and the image of Modi being a Mr Clean - he needs far better preparation to carry that out effectively.

The BJP, too, laughed off Gandhi's allegations. While Gandhi was dismissed as non-serious and a joke by the BJP, Union minister Ravi Shankar Prasad defended Modi by saying that the "PM is as pure as Ganga". Given that the river is in urgent need to be rescued from the pan-Indian filth weighing it down, contaminating every drop of its precious water, we are not sure what the minister was indeed thinking when he made that comparison.

Now, we really don't know if it's Gandhi or Prasad who sounds funnier. The jury is still out.

Also read: How will Rahul Gandhi, the whistleblower, explain his meeting with Modi?