Can Rahul Gandhi deliver for the Congress?

Rahul Gandhi's image management. Cartoon by Ajit Ninan;
Courtesy - indiatimes.com. Click for larger image.

For a few years now, Rahul Gandhi's political persona is being crafted in New Delhi. There is clear and conscious design behind this. The trips to UP, a politically important state, the selective engagement with the Government, the complete lack of involvement with the Government are new ideas in political nurturing.

This लोक सेवा 'lok seva' and 'power I dont want' stance is being projected extensively. MJ Akbar captures this surreal political atmosphere in his recent post

Rahul Gandhi in the Hindi heart-belt. Cartoon by Kirtish
Bhatt; cartoon courtesy http://bamulahija.wordpress.com

It is axiomatic that a largely impoverished nation needs a political party that the poor can identify with. The Congress has set out to be the party of the poor in daytime, and of the rich at night. Its sunlight politics will fetch votes, its twilight policies will enable it to govern. This is an extremely clever act whose opening scenes are being played out for a new generation that is vague about Indira Gandhi and amnesiac about Nehru. The hero of this drama must have the charisma to dazzle the poor and the flexibility to keep the rich onside. That is the challenge before Rahul Gandhi. His avowed role is to be the guardian of the poor in Delhi, which means that the poor need protection from Delhi. He is at home with the elite in the in the evening and is now making the effort to capture the sunshine hours. (via Crown prince Rahul cannily turns left : India : M J Akbar : TOI Blogs).

Rahul Gandhi's image management. Cartoon by
Ajit Ninan; Courtesy - indiatimes.com.
Click for larger image.

The political apprenticeship of Rajiv Gandhi needed Indira's Gandhi's assassination to win an election. After that one singular victory, Rajiv was electorally ineffective and politically insignificant. Before Rajiv, his younger brother Sanjay Gandhi could not take on the Nehru mantle as his mother had done. Priyanka Vadra's attempts at politics did not get the electoral traction that the Congress needed to win an election. 

The single biggest reason forRahul Gandhi's success may well be the BJP. Headless and clueless, BJP out of power, is a shell of BJP before being in power. 

Losing power can do some things.

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