Congress party’s albatross

Now that the Congress Party has drawn a blank in the Delhi Vidhan Sabha elections, the question is bound to crop up once again about the usefulness of Rahul Gandhi as the party’s star campaigner. For one, the BJP retort that wherever the duo campaign during elections, the BJP wins seems to be making some sense. It is time the Congress party considered the following points related to Rahul that seem to have been instrumental in bringing about Congress’s debacle.

One, Rahul’s strategy rightly dubbed ‘Shoot and Scoot’ has impacted the party’s fate negatively. Comments made in this style by him are unbecoming of the leader of the party, much less of the entire opposition in Indian politics. He has often failed to elaborate the charges he casually flings upon the government. A recent example was his allegation regarding our Foreign Minister requesting US President Trump to invite PM Modi was such a shameful act which showed the LOP’s attitude as immature. There was no reaction from the Congress party when this allegation was rebutted by the government.  

Two, the disconnect between Rahul Gandhi and the Congress governments in states was too glaring to be overlooked and it created doubt in people’s mind. While he went the whole hog for caste census, his own government in Karnataka sat over the results of the caste census, even going back on placing it before the Assembly at the last moment. One wondered if it was to be the fate of the census results, what was the logic in demanding it? Similarly, his charge that the government took money out of common man’s pocket and put it in the pocket of business tycoon Adani sat at odds with the real situation wherein Congress governments in Rajasthan and Telangana had been conducting business with Adani.

Three, his fantastic ideas lacked realistic touch. While he mouthed pious platitudes about representation of backward classes in the bureaucracy and even in private media houses and corporations, people believed they were being taken as a dumb lot. Simple logic eluded his assertion that the Finance Ministry officials preparing the budget did not reflect the depressed classes. I it was pointed out to him that the bureaucrats belonged to 1980-90s batches when Congress governments were in power. The problem is Rahul did not realize that the Woke ideas in fashion in America were a little too early for India.

Four, Rahul’s secret visits abroad have been leaving the people befuddled, even though some sympathize with him believing that he needs rest in a while from fierce public life. When he is late in returning, tongues get wagging here about his secret meetings with representatives of George Soros and company. The rumour seems a reality when on foreign soil, he wages verbal attacks on lack of democracy in India. Recently, the way Rahul enthused the Congressmen saying that they had to fight the Indian state leaves no one in doubt about who had written this script. Any law-abiding citizen in India knows that fighting the Indian state is the theme of terrorist organizations like PFI or BKI, etc. It is the first time that the leader of a recognized political party has chosen to speak this language, which certainly undermines his democratic credentials. Similarly, his tirade against Hinduism in the Parliament was taking a leaf out of George Soros’ book.  

Five, Rahul also seems to revere Joseph Goebbels whose maxim that if you repeat a lie a hundred times it becomes truth in the public eye. Rahul’s repetition ad nauseum of the claim that China has occupied 4,000 Sq. Km. of Indian territory in the face of denial by the army and the government is one such example. Gen. Narwane, during a recent interview, said that such questioning of official claim is done with the intent to elicit more sensitive information to be probably shared with inimical powers. This is a trap into which the army leadership won’t fall. Surprisingly, Rahul does not remember anything about the 45,000 Sq. Km that China annexed during former Prime Minister Nehru’s time, nor will he talk about his own meeting with the Chinese embassy officials during the Galwan standoff or the MOU signed by the Congress Party with the Communist Party of China whose detail was demanded by minister Nirmala Seetharaman. 

It is clear that Rahul Gandhi looks for some fantastic idea to grab media headlines which hardly suits his stature as the leader of the opposition. No wonder that the plummeting stock of the Congress Party under him is an indicator to the other opposition parties within the INDIA block who seem to be reading the writing on the wall and distancing themselves from the Congress Party. It is time the party shed the albatross. In the process, it would also free itself from the charge of practising dynastic politics which has always stuck to it.

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