How Sushma Swaraj exposed Rahul Gandhi
Whether Sushma Swaraj reveals the name of the Congress leader who put pressure on her to give diplomatic visa to a coal-scam accused, her one tweet in the morning exposed that Congress vice president Rahul Gandhi is not yet ready to take charge of the grand old party of India. His padyatras, immediately after his 56-day hibernation earlier this year, raised hopes that finally he was ready to lead the party from the front. His witty and passionate speeches against Modi government on divergent issues — from farmers’ rights to net neutrality — made media announce the arrival of a new and repackaged Rahul Gandhi.
Yet, it took just one tweet from the Union external affairs minister to bust the myth. The Congress leaders did not know exactly how to react to Swaraj’s tweet and looked towards the party vice-president for direction. But they should have known from experience. When there is a crisis in the party, Rahul Gandhi either smiles sheepishly, as he did after the humiliating Lok Sabha poll defeat, or lapses into his silent mode.
The party’s single-point strategy to corner Modi government over allegations of impropriety against Swaraj who helped IPL-tainted Lalit Modi get travel documents in UK, Rajasthan chief minister Vasundhara Raje’s nexus with Lalit Modi and Madhya Pradesh CM Shivraj Singh Chouhan’s role in Vyapam scam almost came a cropper with Swaraj’s counter attack. But the party’s vice-president and de-facto chief was not be found boosting the morale of his ambushed soldiers.
He may have thundered last week in Jaipur that he would deflate Modi’s 56-inch chest and will make it 5.6 inch, but the action is yet to match his words. Rahul’s reluctance to even put up a fight was evident when on July 13, at the iftar organised by the Congress president Sonia Gandhi, he told a journalist that he had no business to force Prime Minister Narendra Modi to speak in Parliament on corruption charges.
"Who am I to ask him to speak? It’s his prerogative," said Rahul to shocked journalists. Who will remind him that he is the de-facto head of the largest opposition party in the country?
So when Swaraj fired from Twitter, it took an almost 70-year-old Sonia Gandhi to once again come to the rescue of her party. The Congress president responded to Swaraj’s threat about exposing one of her leaders in Parliament, saying they were free to do what they wanted. "Let them say what they want to, we will speak what we want to," said a belligerent Sonia said as she led her MPs to the House on the second day of the Monsoon Session.
It was only in February this year when Sonia had led an entire Opposition to Rashtrapati Bhawan to protest against the Land Acquisition Bill. That march and her subsequent whirlwind tour to three states to meet farmers not only gave the party a fresh lease of life but also created the platform for the launch of the new and reloaded Rahul.
Only if she knew the bubble would burst so soon.