The Ra Mo Superbowl?

The novice Rahul Gandhi of old is gone. His probable allies may be less than enthusiastic, but a presidential air is building up around the 2019 contest.

- Bhavna Vij-Aurora

Elections are, in a real sense, about groups. Population segments, parties, caucuses, ticket-seekers, armies of worker ants on the ground…all of it has a collective nature. But sometimes the essential idea of a contest is given flesh to— incarnated—by personages. Faces stand in for ideas: people find them easier to relate to. As the 2019 Lok Sabha elections draw nearer, the battlelines are slowly morphing from shapeless, confused squiggles into something more cogent and compelling. If the dramatic faceoff between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Congress president Rahul Gandhi during the no-confidence motion debate set the tone, the aggressive pitch made by the Congress Working Committee (CWC) to take pole position among the Opposition was its validation.

It’s clear the Congress believes Rahul is ready to take on Modi in a one-to-one fight. Rahul’s relentless attack on the prime minister in Parliament on July 20 left no room for doubt that the Congress’s campaign will target Modi directly, and try to chip away at the narrative of a doer built around him. Even more strikingly, Modi made it about Rahul in his speech. Does that mean they still think of him as the Congress’s biggest liability? Or has the Gandhi scion managed to rattle him? Either way, a circle of light is zeroing in on Rahul too, defining him with more clarity.

Whether it was the surprise hug or the combative rhetoric that preceded it, Rahul managed an extra buzz of visibility. The cheeky wink that followed, caught by a camera, became a point of debate. Communication and image-building experts claim it ruined whatever brownie points Rahul may have scored by his incisive speech. Political commentators are willing to overlook it as a gesture of youthful joy. Again, either way, it got talked about.