Madhya Pradesh farmers' unrest: At least Rahul Gandhi has started trying
Four days before June 1, when Rahul Gandhi was to scheduled to arrive in Hyderabad and proceed to Sangareddy, 66km away, to address a public meeting in the evening, a Telangana Congress leader called me.
"The plan is to drive from old Hyderabad airport to Sangareddy in a procession, with about four to five stops in between, including one to garland the Rajiv Gandhi statue at Somajiguda. It is bound to create a huge traffic jam. Do you think it is a good idea or will we get lot of brickbats from Hyderabadis on social media?" he asked.
For those not familiar with Hyderabad's geography, the old airport at Begumpet is in the heart of the city and Somajiguda, about 3 km from there is a busy commercial area.
I told him that Hyderabad's already stressed-out and shrunk road space (thanks to the Metro Rail construction) would not be able to take the pressure of a Congress party motorcade and I, as a Hyderabadi, won't be amused, getting caught in an artificially created jam. The leader said he will convey the feedback to the party leadership. But on 30 May, he messaged to say the party had decided to go ahead with the convoy route because the aim was to create an impact.
Politicians obviously think differently from the common public. That any visibility is good publicity and Rahul Gandhi, belatedly, seems to have realised that his approach of wanting to first reform the party from within, will not work in Indian politics. When he is up against a consummate political rival like Narendra Modi, he cannot be the good boy who always listens to the monitor in the classroom.
Which is perhaps why if the last 10 days are anything to go by, Rahul Gandhi seems to be trying to reinvent himself. In a space of 10 days, he has been seen more outside Lutyens' Delhi, a term now almost synonymous with a disconnect with the rest of India.
#WATCH Congress VP Rahul Gandhi travels by road on a motorcycle to Madhya Pradesh’s #Mandsaur pic.twitter.com/CWoUq0zpWS
— ANI (@ANI_news) June 8, 2017
He started with Saharanpur in Uttar Pradesh, went to Sangareddy in Telangana, Chennai in Tamil Nadu, Guntur in Andhra Pradesh, and now Mandsaur in Madhya Pradesh.
But with Rahul Gandhi, hope is an untrustworthy word. Going by past experience, this could just be one of those "bharat darshan" phases that he often gets into, only to take off on a foreign holiday soon after.
It is that tag of a political tourist that has been associated with him, someone non-serious, someone who just enjoys the attention of being a Gandhi kid and feeling self-important. And he has only himself to blame for it.
But look closely at the last five outings and they seem to convey a sense of purpose, that of correcting old mistakes and putting some energy into a party that has gone into comatose in many states in India.
Uttar Pradesh is a big election his party lost recently, but he has realised that despite the drubbing, he needs to stay engaged in the state as an opposition leader.
Telangana is an important constituency for the Congress that lost the state despite delivering statehood to the region. His speech in Sangareddy served the purpose of galvanising the rank and file even though his comments criticising K Chandrasekhar Rao's promotion of his dynasty only provoked jibes at his own self and family.
But his presence in Hyderabad meant the Congress, which was being challenged by the BJP even for the opposition space, now plans to build up on the gains made in Sangareddy.
Chennai was an occasion to make amends. Rahul Gandhi during the UPA days, never bothered to call on Karunanidhi when he toured Tamil Nadu even though he was an ally.
When J Jayalalithaa was in hospital, the Congress vice-president, goaded by his Tamil Nadu PCC chief S Thirunavukkarasu, flirted with the idea of dumping the DMK for the AIADMK. Now chastened by the political developments in Tamil Nadu since Jayalalithaa's demise, the Chennai trip on Karunanidhi's birthday was his way of establishing a political relationship with MK Stalin.
Rahul Gandhi is clearly the junior partner to the DMK, but it would hope that the alliance results in a decent harvest of Congress MPs in 2019.
The Congress has for the past three years, written itself off in Andhra Pradesh ever since it bifurcated the state. The 2014 elections saw it drawing a blank and it now does not have a single MP or MLA in the state, quite a comedown for the party that ruled it for 10 years from 2004.
Guntur was getting into political enemy territory as both the TDP and the YSR Congress are rivals. While N Chandrababu Naidu is a BJP ally, YS Jaganmohan Reddy by extending support to the BJP candidate in the presidential elections, is cosying up to Narendra Modi. The Congress has, therefore, a vague anti-BJP space to occupy if it plays its cards well.
The public meeting where he promised special category status to Andhra Pradesh, if the Congress comes to power in 2019, is just the first step. The party has a long way to go before it can even hope to recover the lost ground in Andhra.
Mandsaur is guerilla political warfare. And here he is not just up against the BJP, but the mainstream media as well, a significant section of which lampoons him for trying to get into prohibited area on a bike and trying to play politics over the death of farmers in police firing.
He has drawn from the Aam Aadmi Party book on how to be a disruptive force, to make his voice heard when the majority in the media and social media, are determined to paint him a "Pappu".
It is still too early for anyone to laud Rahul Gandhi. For the Congress vice-president, to get his hands dirty on the field in the next two years, leading from the front is very important. Decisiveness of the manner he exhibited when he immediately suspended the Youth Congress workers who slaughtered a cow in public in Kannur is needed all the time.
If he has to emerge a serious challenger two years from now, the time started yesterday.