The growing ‘R’ factor

Vivek Katju 
Ex-secretary, Ministry of External Affairs

Irrespective of the Lok Sabha election result — and a complete meltdown of the Congress party, as in 2014, is improbable — Rahul Gandhi has become an established leader on the national scene. The days of doubts about his commitment to politics are over. Not once during this campaign has anyone raised questions on this score; nor has there been any comment, as there was periodically in the past, on his political stamina. A month short of 49 years, he now seems to be at peace with the role that his heritage may have thrust on him and is not chafing at the path he must walk.

Leading his party from the front, he has demonstrated energy and staying power. His political articulation has become transformed. He does not have the oratorical skills of PM Modi but succeeds sufficiently, conveying his points to the electorate. He is obviously at ease in his media interactions too. His disastrous interview with Arnab Goswami prior to the last Lok Sabha polls is now a distant memory. 

Rahul Gandhi has taken much more than a decade to show the maturity that he is now demonstrating. His performance on the political front was poor between 2004 and 2014, including in the elections in which he took interest such as in UP in 2012. He came through as awkward and clumsy and many neutral observers did not take offence to the disparaging sobriquet ‘pappu’ that was spread by Congress’ adversaries. The 2014 election was obviously a low point and for four years thereafter it seemed he had lost his bearings. The BJP victory in the 2017 UP elections, in which his partnership with Akhilesh Yadav did not work, once again raised doubts about his political acumen.

Rahul became the Congress president in December 2017. Once he had joined the party in 2004, this post was his for the taking. He may seek to explain away the role of hereditary in his political life but it is undeniable that it has played a critical role. The fact is that most political parties in India are family fiefdoms and the Nehru-Gandhis played a leading role in putting down that tradition. The fact also is that the people do not reject these parties on that count. From the standpoint of democratic principles, it would be preferable for hereditary not to play a role in the nation’s politics, but does it really impact the electorate? Naamdars have an initial advantage but are ultimately judged by their ideas and kaam.

Rahul led his party to success in the Vidhan Sabha elections in Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh last November. While anti-incumbency against the ruling BJP in the three states helped the Congress, its victories were a shot in the arm for the party. They burnished his political image throughout the country. In May 2018, the Congress, in a skilful manoeuvre, prevented the BJP from forming the government in Karnataka though it had emerged as the single largest party in the Assembly elections and its state leader had been sworn in as Chief Minister. This is in contrast to Goa in March 2017 when the Congress, despite being the largest party after the polls, lost out to the BJP in government formation.

The past 15 months have been good for Rahul. He handled the party well in preparing for the national elections despite some hiccups in making pre-poll alliances. He also kept to the party’s middle-of-the-road ideology but projected a soft Hindu image with a large number of temple visits while underlining the need for a compassionate and inclusive society. His economic vision does not essentially depart from his party’s traditional positions but seeks to emphasise a pro-poor position. The NYAY project, which promises to assure crores of poor families of an annual minimum inflow of Rs 72,000, is a significant move, but its implementation may be difficult. On national security or foreign policy, he has not put forward any major or new ideas of his own. His claim in a recent interview — ‘the truth is that we completely neutralised Pakistan and did it strategically’ — is simply not true. 

While he has imparted a sense of purpose to the Congress, he has a long way to go to establish its pre-eminence on the national scene. The party no longer has the biggest footprint in the country, the BJP does. Its organisation and election contesting machinery is hollow as compared to that of the BJP. Its fund-raising capacity — and that is vital in politics — is puny compared to BJP’s. Above all, in the crucial state of UP, the Congress is of little consequence.

Unless the Congress again becomes a force to really reckon with in UP, it will always remain dependent on other parties in a big way. Its weakness is demonstrated by the fact that almost three decades have passed since the state had a Congress chief minister. Its performance in the Lok Sabha polls has been disappointing too. The year 2014 was exceptional, for Modi rolled over all parties, but prior to that too, the party’s number in the Lok Sabha hovered around 10, except in 2009 when it got 22 seats. Rahul needs to reinvent the party in UP but that will be difficult, for it does not have the natural support of any of the state’s social formations. 

While Modi is ahead of him in almost all political metrics, Rahul is now here to stay and will be Modi’s main opponent. Modi is conscious of this. That is the reason for his determined focus on Rahul’s inheritance and on him all through the campaign.