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WHAT'S THE RAHUL'S PROBLEM?
By M H AHSAN
Hubris and incompetence make for a deadly combination. The Congress party, like the Bourbons, learns nothing, forgets nothing. India's oldest political formation is not just incorrigible, it flaunts its incorrigibility as a virtue. One does not require a Nobel prize in social engineering to decode the message the UP electorate has sent the High Command. You can read the verdict any which way you like—seat-share, vote-share, Lok Sabha segment-share, community-share—but you cannot escape the clear conclusion. The results are an unqualified disaster and a massive indictment of the election strategy followed by the Congress. One hopes midnight oil is being burned at the appropriate quarters conceding error and going back to the drawing board for 2009.
Yet, what do we hear? Rahul Gandhi will again lead the party campaign in 2009 and also in the Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh assembly polls. We are told the results are a vindication of everything Rahul said and did on the campaign trail. We are told the UP unit of the party is tremendously buoyed and enthused by winning 22 seats and collecting a voteshare less than the one in 2002. Party leaders and senior ministers who say such silly things have jobs to protect and careers to promote, so one should not be too harsh on them provided wiser heads are engaged in sober analysis and drastic course correction.
To dismiss the pathetic Congress showing by citing a Mayawati wave, or an anti-Mulayam wave, or a weak organisation unable to convert voter interest into extra seats, is an exercise in self-deception. Political parties are masters at the art of finding excuses. In that respect, the Congress is no different. Interestingly, the BJP is rather good at genuine introspection which freely acknowledges ideological or tactical mistakes. The Congress, meanwhile, is rather good at making defeat seem like triumph.
The ladies and gentlemen in the Congress who decided that young, inexperienced Rahul should be put in a Qualis, let loose in the state and be projected as the main vote-catcher for the party should be sent a showcause notice. It was a huge strategic blunder to ask the first time MP from Amethi to shoulder the entire burden of winning Congress some electoral respectability in the state. Clearly, he was not up to the task, which should not have been given to him in the first place. I am not privy to the role the "family" and the young MP himself played in agreeing to become the principal agent for the party. I am certain the "family" played a role; I cannot be certain, however, if it was a decisive role. Or did the courtiers come up with the bright idea?
As some readers know, I am not hostile to the family or the party, so I write this with no malicious intent or glee. Nevertheless, I cannot help but highlight a truth which is staring the party in the face. Someone, somewhere with more clout than me in the Congress is, I hope, doing the same.
So, is Rahul Gandhi hopeless? Is he an electoral liability? Should he be permanently banned from electioneering? It would be inane to arrive at such an extreme position. However much his critics belittle him, Rahul represents a very special political family which has made enormous contributions to nation-building. In terms of personal sacrifice alone, which other party has lost two prime ministers to the terrorist's gun? I do not wish to labour a point which does not require any labouring. Nevertheless, Rahul has to be used intelligently and sparingly. Most crucially, the expectation level must be realistic. In UP, the expectation level was unfair and unreasonable.
What does the Congress have that other parties do not? It owns five, if not more, new-generation MPs who have the potential to connect with the 70 per cent of India aged under 30.If they teamed up under the leadership of Rahul (so that he is the first among equals) and criss-crossed the country carrying the message of modernity and development, the impact would be dramatic. Imagine the effect of Sachin Pilot, Jyotiraditya Scindia, Milind Deora, Jitin Prasada and Rahul Gandhi on one platform! The party would then hold an extraordinary bunch working collectively instead of Rahul ploughing a lonely furrow.
These GenNext MPs may have the benefit of elite local and foreign education, but they are firmly rooted in the soil. They represent mostly non-metropolitan constituencies. If they were to campaign on a theme of, say, creating new educational infrastructure, like more IIMs and IITs, the results would be electrifying. Till date, the MPs I have mentioned are languishing , they are woefully underutilised. Doubtless, it is their loss but the party is the bigger loser.
For some mysterious reason, the youth brigade of the Congress is a weapon the party has kept concealed. The lesson from UP for the Congress is that it needs team players, not solo stars.
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