RaGa Road To Gujarat Navsurgence

Rahul hits BJP with slowdown and scandal with faultless timing, but can it be termed a Congress reawakening?

- Pranay Sharma

It’s almost like a battered bowler, categorised for long as military medium both in pace and in averages, suddenly getting new purchase from the pitch and knocking down a few wickets. Rahul Gandhi has spent years being portrayed as the sort of liability for the Congress who actually redounds to the credit of the rival camp—just by being himself. But fresh off a well-received tour of the US, and in the backdrop of the #VikasGandoThayoChhe campaign in Gujarat, his Navsarjan yatra has set off some ripples in the heart of Modi country.

What impact his rallies and headline-grabbing quotable quotes would have on the voters of Gujarat can only be gauged when they cast their ballot in the year-end assembly elections. Rahul Gandhi bearding the lion in his den is the stuff of Congress fantasy at this stage—nothing more. The newly fragmented Gujarat polity may only scatter anti-incumbency votes. But his presence seems to have had two visible eff­ects: one, it has brought a spring back to the steps of Congressmen; and two, it has sparked off some serious unease in the BJP leadership.

Even if the first is an unstable element—the Congress has been prone to signs of a spiritual exhaustion of late—the BJP’s reaction is a sure measure of Rahul’s success in propaganda terms. (BJP strategists have decided to send Union minister Sushma Swaraj for a town hall-style meeting.) This change in mood was foreshadowed by an NRI student who commented online after Rahul’s speech at the University of California, Berkeley: “I guess he’s not as bad as what the trolls say...good one, Mr Gandhi.”