Rahul Gandhi must earn his right to run the Congress
Ever since Rahul Gandhi joined politics in 2004, the general perception is that he is a part-time politician who often shies away from taking responsibility.
The absence of the Congress vice-president from the Budget session, when the party was supposed to take on the BJP government over the amended land acquisition bill, has raised a question mark over his political future. His detractors say he has no idea how to revive the party from the historic low it plummeted to in 2014 Lok Sabha polls. They claim that he doesn't even have the will to do so.
However, if his loyalists are to be believed, he is ready to take charge as the president of the party.
As one of them told me, he has even prepared a detailed note on how to revive the party from the grassroots. His plan revolves around these major themes-election to all organisational posts in the party, strengthening block and district level committees giving them a say in ticket distribution, changing the norms and process of member enrolment, defining the job profile of MPs and MLAs and innovating a system to audit their performance and ending the political process where all the decisions in states are taken by the chief minister and some of his favourite ministers.
There is no doubt that he has identified the major flaws of not only Congress party but also of the Indian political system. However, the big question is: will he be able to deliver? If we go by his track record, it's a big no. But people do reinvent themselves.
According to his supporters, the "leave" during the Budget session was to prepare himself for the big role and the challenges that will follow. He knows that the road ahead will be tougher than imagined and there is only 50 per cent possibility of success. At the same time, he wants absolute freedom to implement his ideas.
Of course the old guard is opposing his ideas saying that these are not practical. To amplify their argument they point to his failure in "bringing democracy to Youth Congress" and the disastrous experiment of US-style primaries in which none of the elected Congress candidates could win the Lok Sabha polls.
To be fair to Rahul, the Youth Congress election process is not a failure though it has certain flaws. "In the nomination process, I could never have become Youth Congress president. Thanks to Rahul Gandhi I got an equal opportunity. Earlier, many deserving candidates failed to get recognition within the party because they did not have powerful mentors," says former Assam Youth Congress president Pijush Hazarika, who later became an MLA.
The election process definitely has given Congress firebrand leaders such as Rizwan Arshad in Karnataka and Amrinder Singh Brar in Punjab. None of them had any political background.
Hazarika admits that money and muscle power is used to win polls but blames it on the interference of senior leaders who use Youth Congress as a platform to showcase their might. Members of Rahul's think tank accept these allegations and claim that the organisational elections to the parent party will create a culture of democracy and such interferences will end. But before that they want to introduce a robust process of membership enrolment so that only people who believe in Congress ideology join the party.
"Politics must not be seen as a tool to make money," says one of Gandhi's aides. On paper, all these ideas sound great. But to implement these ideas the party needs a leader who will stand by the party 24 hours for 365 days. He has to be accessible to every member of the party and must communicate using every possible tool. It's not enough to reach out to party members but the common citizen must also have a clear idea about Rahul's vision and what he stands for.
For now, all that we know about Rahul is through secondary sources. Apart from his election speeches, which are mostly rehashed rhetoric, we have no idea what he thinks about most of the issues crippling the country. Nobody has an answer on what prevented him from addressing the thousands of young people who thronged the streets of Delhi protesting against the brutal rape of a girl in December 2012. We know he is passionate about the land rights of the oppressed and woman empowerment. But no sane politician can have any different view on these issues.
So what's his USP? Once in a meeting with Youth Congress leaders in a state, he encouraged the budding Congress leaders to raise their voice if they felt that senior leaders and Congress ministers were not performing their jobs sincerely. Inspired by the Gandhi scion, these young Congressmen took on several ministers and expectedly faced punitive action. When they tried to reach out to Rahul Gandhi, his office sent a terse response: "Please approach the state leadership." Another secretary, chosen by him, had prepared a note on Mizoram just before the Assembly polls in 2013 and mailed it to him. Two days later, the reply came: "Happy Diwali."
Within this year, Rahul Gandhi will certainly become the Congress president, with absolute or curtailed power. For success, he doesn't need absolute power. When Narendra Modi began his journey to the top, he was a mere chief minister. But he effectively convinced the people that he had the solutions to the problems of the country. Once the masses stood by him, the party had to give in to his demands. Arvind Kejriwal is not successful because he is the supreme leader in the party. It is the people who gave him absolute power.
If Rahul wants to transform his party, he must reach out to the common masses. The cameo appearances at Niyamgiri or Bhatta Parsaul will not serve any purpose. There is no harm in taking breaks but breaks must not clash with Budget session or the party's founding day. And breaks should not outnumber working days and this is true of any profession.
By now he should have realised the mistake of shunning the conventional media and social media. His rivals-Modi and Kejriwal-have acknowledged the role these two media played in their stupendous electoral success. Till now the Gandhi scion has shown no sign of changing his mindset towards media.
The good news is that several Congress leaders, including his detractors, accept that it has become easier now to get time from him and that he is warmer and friendlier in his interactions. However, the anger against his think tank continues as ever. "His team is full of intelligent and well-meaning people. But they have no clue about Indian politics at the local level. Their theories are good, but to implement them you need Indian jugad too. For that he must keep some sound political minds in his team," says a general secretary of the party.
The Rahul puzzle perhaps could be best understood with this irony. Since his first appearance, the Gandhi scion has been seen on TV screens mostly in a white kurta and jeans or white pyjamas, with a sleeveless black jacket in winter. When he visits states for party work, he prefers staying in modest accommodation.
Yet, he is seen as a symbol of elitism and privilege. Modi, as chief minister and now as prime minister, has been a fashion icon, wearing colourful kurtas and jackets and bespoke accessories. Yet, he is seen as the chaiwala. The day Rahul can crack this puzzle, he will not need absolute freedom to revive the party.