Is Rahul Gandhi secretly working for Modi? His ATM visits suggest so
Rahul Gandhi is early to bed, early to rise, so that he can make it to the ATM guys.
Okay, we are literally rolling on the floor laughing, while holding on to our fast-depleting Rs 100 notes that we finally managed to snatch from an unwitting ATM, as we play PokemonGo with Rahul Baba. His early morning jog today took him to four of Delhi's residential areas where he did a recce-on-the-go of the cash-strapped Dilliwalahs. So far, so good. Only Rahul Gandhi holding on to the precious Rs 4,000 that he had managed to get exchanged the last time around, at SBI's Parliament Street branch to boot, is, well, sending us into maniacal fits of uncontrollable laughter.
If PM Narendra Modi banked on his 95-year-old mother to ensure a good photo-op, Rahul Gandhi's facesaver could be that he didn't field Sonia Gandhi to queue up at Delhi ATMs to get some cash out. He bravely soldiered on, inhaling Delhi's toxic air and the early morning inertia, to ask the Dilli denizens how bad their lot has come to be.
Congress Vice President Rahul Gandhi visits Delhi residents queued up outside ATMs in the cityhttps://t.co/fkCUFRmbxL
— INC India (@INCIndia) November 21, 2016
Congress Vice President Rahul Gandhi visits ATMs in Delhi, interacts with the people standing in the queue #ITVideo pic.twitter.com/TOwVc8U6FC
— India Today (@IndiaToday) November 21, 2016
But unlike say an Arvind Kejriwal, who is all fire and brimstone with his pointed, number-heavy critique, or a Mamata Banerjee, who's truly the Didi of Bengal, and can stir up India like a freshly cooked fish curry, vegetarians be damned, Rahul Gandhi is falling through the stools of affluence and Congress' selective outrage.
Hell, he's even smoking political weed spiked with the hash called ghost of Indira Gandhi and hailing her as the most amazing leader India has had the good/bad fortune to have, overriding the extremely disconcerting similarities she has with Modi. Who in Congress is really advising him to do these astonishingly ill-scripted photo-ops, when a good section of Indians from even the lower and middle classes are displaying Stockholm Syndrome and hailing demonetisation despie going hungry for hours, if not days, to win the battle against ATMs all over India?
Congress VP Rahul Gandhi meets people standing in queue outside ATM in Delhi's Jahangirpuri area. pic.twitter.com/GSxYb093WJ
— ANI (@ANI_news) November 21, 2016
Congress VP Rahul Gandhi meets people outside ATM in Delhi's Zakira area, talks to them about problems faced due to #demonetization pic.twitter.com/QlpVNRsbcp
— ANI (@ANI_news) November 21, 2016
Typically, a photo-op gone awry is now part and parcel of being Rahul Gandhi. Whether it was the "khat pe charcha" that made headlines for the wrong reasons, or his JNU song and dance whose thunder was stoen by Arvind Kejriwal (yet again!), Rahul's heart-is-in-the-right-place-but-head-is-everywhere antics is becoming a stretch now.
Congress VP Rahul Gandhi met people outside an ATM in Delhi's Zakira area & spoke to them about problems faced due to #demonetization pic.twitter.com/B1SwlhPzzx
— Youth Congress (@IYC) November 21, 2016
Rahul's attempt to enact the aam aadmi is woefully inept, and it's unfortunate. While we have a prime minister who openly mocks the downtrodden at a rock concert only the rich can pay to attend, the Opposition's on a wild goose chase trying to find Rahul Gandhi's political mojo, participating in an augmented reality of sort, trying to anchor themselves on the sterility of his cherubic face.
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Unfortunately, even Rahul's Twitter smarts are not received that well, and that's a tad unfair.
The cold play while the poor suffer!
— Office of RG (@OfficeOfRG) November 19, 2016
But seriously, when no one can beat PM Modi in the department of photo-ops and photoshops, why tread that dreaded path at all? Why not devise a radically new way of making the Opposition's voice heard on issues as relevant as demonetisation, while not resorting to cheap theatrics from the Modi's rejects stable?
Congress workers briefed early morningSent to stand at ATM's where #RahulGandhi is going to visitThen show long queueGood Strategy
— sandip sabharwal (@sandipsabharwal) November 21, 2016
Can't get over the fact that Rahul Gandhi's been surviving on 4000 rupees cash as he's been to the ATM only once.
— Poonam Khatri (@poonamkhatri) November 20, 2016
Rahul Gandhi stood in a ATM line like a common man in Mumbai ,Maharashtra and got his cash in 25 mins
— Rishi Bagree (@rishibagree) November 16, 2016
Plus, Rahul needs people who can call the spade a spade, not an echochamber of yesmen. He should be told that imitating Modi's touch and go strategy doesn't work for everyone, particularly someone not even one-hundredth per cent as shrewd as the political mastermind.
Rahul Gandhi is the face of the modern, secular India ! The Idea of India has a gritty determined fighter protecting it. #RahulStands4India
— Sanjay Jha (@JhaSanjay) November 16, 2016
Are Modi and Amit Shah secretly pulling Rahul's strings? Is HE the BJP mole in Congress after all? Cross your heart and kiss your elbow, for the truth shall soon wrap itself in an ANI tweet and emerge.
Watch: Government's steps have damaged the economy: Mamata Banerjee on demonetisation