RAHUL'S YATRA FAILS TO HAVE AN IMPACT ON GROUND

However, the yatra may have helped Rahul leave behind his ‘pappu’ image for now.

- BADAR BASHIR

Congress leader Rahul Gandhi’s image hasn’t improved despite his Bharat Jodo Yatra (BJY), though his coterie claims his image has improved. Though the yatra may have helped Rahul Gandhi leave behind his “pappu” image for the time being, in Indian political landscape, he is still seen as a “part-time” political—an image which has been made worse by his past failures in running the organisation and simultaneously, his inability to win elections.

Rahul Gandhi’s critics claim that though he has escaped responsibility of fixing his party, he has, instead, switched to an imagebuilding exercise to match Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s popularity. Congress leaders, however, believe that Rahul Gandhi’s Bharat Jodo Yatra is an “important ingredient” of a recipe that will make the party supreme on the ideological front, and will pay rich dividends in the 2029 Lok Sabha polls. “Till then, the Congress ideology will spread and overshadow the saffron ideology of Hindutva; the focus is on ideology not on electoral benefits,” the Congress ex-president of a state said.