Rahul Gandhi: "Power Is Poison, But You Can't Run Away From It"

It’s been a long, gruelling campaign for the Lok Sabha elections.

- Ruben Banerjee and Bhavna Vij-Aurora

And Congress president Rahul Gandhi, 48, has been right in the eye of the storm, coming offhis party’s lowest tally ever in 2014 and fighting a grim battle for centrestage, fending offvicious personal attacks, the frustration of seeing alliances made and unmade, braving rebukes and rebuffs—but “with humility”. He spoke to Outlook on board a flight for a leg of campaigning in Punjab, touching on a range of issues— from Modi, the economy, political openness, the generational change in Congress, and the charge of being the BJP’s B-team. Excerpts:

We are almost at the end of a gruelling campaign. Who are you betting on post-May 23?

I’m betting on the people of India. There’s no one else to bet on.

And you think they will be the winners?

They are wise, they have understanding and whatever they do is correct.

Were they correct in 2014?

The people are always correct. In 2014, the Congress had a particular model for India that we had used successfully in the 1990s, and had tweaked and used it successfully again in 2004. Around 2012, the model collapsed; it wasn’t working as India had changed. But we went to the election with the same model, making our defeat inevitable. And we had also made mistakes. With 10 years in power, some arrogance had crept into our leaders. This was compounded by a bad economic situation. There was growing anger in India and India picked an angry person to lead her. Narendra Modi had a great opportunity, but couldn’t make the transition needed for him to succeed as PM.

Will they be right again in 2019? Meanwhile, is it possible that they might be feeling cheated?