dailyO
Politics

Mission impossible: Can Bihar make Rahul Gandhi smell of roses?

Advertisement
Jyoti Malhotra
Jyoti MalhotraSep 24, 2015 | 19:50

Mission impossible: Can Bihar make Rahul Gandhi smell of roses?

What’s a Charlie Rose, Bihar wants to know? Can you call a Charlie Rose by another name and hope Rahul Gandhi will smell as sweet? Congress spokesperson Randeep Surjewala has had the tough job these last couple of days defending his vice-president’s visit to the US to participate in a conference organised by the well-known Aspen Institute think tank and also an interview by the noted journalist Charlie Rose.

Advertisement

Certainly, many people would give their eye teeth to be interviewed by Mr Rose as he is said to specialise in interesting people (his last interviewee was Russian president Vladimir Putin). Moreover, an Aspen conference is supposedly a nice place to hang out with movers and shakers – and presumably talk about how the real India is already distancing itself from the “suit-boot ki sarkar”, code for PM Narendra Modi’s love-fest with Corporate WorldWide Inc.

Except, how wrong can Rahul Gandhi get – again and again and again? Going missing in action when there is a war to be won in Bihar, and repeating yourself ad nauseam in the hope that you will be able to drive your message home just like a certain Narendra Modi, is simply not going to cut it.

So here are three things Mr Gandhi can do to return to the blood, sweat and tears of this important Bihar election:

1. Recognise that timing is everything

Considering the stakes in the Bihar election are so high, and for a change the so-called secular Grand Alliance between the Janata Dal (United), RJD and Congress have a real fighting chance, commonsense would dictate that all hands should be on deck.

Advertisement

Now, it is at this exact point that Mr Gandhi has decided to up and go to his conference in America, only because he had committed to attending it several moons ago.

Instead, Rahul should have fired his diaryist or his hi-fi team of political strategists right away – for not reminding him that a Bihar election was expected to be called anytime around this time. Second, as the adrenalin grew over the last few weeks, Rahul should have bought a one-way ticket to Bihar, at least until November 8 when the elections results would come out. Charlie, he could have told Charlie Rose, lets do this another time.

Cancelling his American commitment may have cost Rahul the chance to explain himself in front of the world. But when his own as well as his party’s political fortunes are so inextricably tied up with the outcome in Bihar, it’s clear that timing is everything.

2. Remember, Belchi

Young Mr Gandhi, actually, needn’t look too far into his party’s political history to recognise the importance of Bihar – it has a village called Belchi in it, less than 100km from Patna.

Here on May 27, 1977, nine Dalits (they were called Harijans at the time) were burnt alive by an upper caste mob. Only a few months before, Rahul’s grandmother, Indira Gandhi, had been convincingly hammered by the Janata Party in elections that she had called after a nearly two-year-long Emergency. When the Belchi attack took place, YB Chavan was the leader of the Opposition in Parliament and he demanded an inquiry into the matter.

Advertisement

Clearly, Indira Gandhi was made of sterner stuff. When she found that Chavan wasn’t doing much on the matter, she decided to take matters in her own hands. She flew to Patna and from there embarked upon her journey to console the victims of the massacre, in a car. The roads had been washed away due to the rains, so she soon exchanged her car for a jeep, and then a tractor. When the tractor got stuck in the slush, she borrowed an elephant from a villager who happened to be passing by.

The image of Rahul’s grandmother, Indira Gandhi, riding an elephant to the village of Belchi has since been frozen in time. It commemorates the never-say-die spirit of someone who is down and out, but refuses to be forever.

Perhaps Rahul can take a leaf out of his grandmother’s sense of history.

3. Apologise, look at the big picture

Rahul Gandhi’s coming out rally in West Champaran a few days ago was such a damp squib, not only because he kept repeating the old, tired cliché of “suit-boot ki sarkar” (it's time to fire his speech-writer as well), but also because his key partners chose to send their second-in-commands, instead of turning up themselves.

It's clear that Sonia Gandhi continues to command enormous respect all around, which is why the timing of her speech at the “mahagathbandhan” rally in Patna three weeks ago was kept in deference to her own initial desire to remain on stage for a short time. Sonia wasn’t well those days and had requested that she be allowed to speak first in the list of major speakers, so she could immediately afterwards return to Delhi, by chopper.

As it turned out, the speeches that followed, by Nitish Kumar, Sharad Yadav and the scene-stealer, Lalu Yadav, were packed with so much punch that Sonia just stayed on. She also seemed to clearly enjoy herself, wiping tears of laughter each time Lalu threw a particular jibe at his opponents and the entire Gandhi Maidan cracked up.

But in Champaran, Rahul’s co-rally speakers were Tejaswi Yadav, Lalu’s son, and Nitish’s able deputy, KC Tyagi. It is no secret that there is no love lost between Rahul and Lalu, particularly not since Rahul tore up the ordinance on allegedly corrupt parliamentarians not being allowed to return to Parliament. That one gesture may have won him the affection of the middle classes, but it deeply hurt Lalu. Worse, it caused the Bihari leader to lose a lot of face. It was also terribly bad manners.

Perhaps, it's not too late to learn the lesson even now that there are no permanent friends or enemies in politics, only interests. In Bihar, for the next few weeks, it is in the interest of the Congress, JD(U) and RJD to present a common front. Being flanked by second-rankers just doesn’t do it.

In this age of "what ifs", what if Rahul Gandhi flies straight back to Patna from Washington DC or New York or wherever he is in the US, and drives straight to Lalu’s home? There, in the presence of a hundred cameras, what if Rahul sits alongside the older man, on a “moorha”, and announces that this is his “karmabhoomi”. And that he will stay here for the next several weeks and not rest until the cows come home – and the battle is won.

What if, Lalu’s cows moo agreement right that very instant?

Last updated: September 24, 2015 | 19:50
IN THIS STORY
Please log in
I agree with DailyO's privacy policy