Why Rahul Gandhi remains in yatra mode as leader of Opposition

Since he took on the mantle of leader of Opposition in Lok Sabha, Congress leader Rahul Gandhi has been constantly on the move.

On July 5, two days after the opening session of Parliament ended, he travelled to Uttar Pradesh to meet the families of the victims of the Hathras stampede in which 120 people, mostly women, had died.

Earlier, on the same day, Gandhi met a group of loco pilots at the New Delhi railway station. His social media post drawing attention to their working conditions elicited a sharp rebuttal from the Union railways minister, but on the ground, union leaders claimed officials met them and heard their grievances.

The next day, on July 6, he was in another state ruled by the Bharatiya Janata Party, meeting the families of those killed in the Rajkot fire tragedy. Days after his visit, the chief minister met the families for the first time.

On July 8, Gandhi was in Manipur, visiting relief camps in Jiribam, the latest site of ethnic strife in the state where 219 people have been killed since May last year.

Earlier this month, in his first speech in the Lok Sabha as Leader of the Opposition, Gandhi had castigated the prime minister for not visiting Manipur even once. A day later, Prime Minister Narendra Modi made his first major remarks on Manipur in Parliament.

Gandhi’s speech also forced the government and the Indian Army to disclose how much compensation had been paid to the family of an Agniveer soldier. He had met the family of the slain soldier in Punjab in January.

Once dismissed as a part-time politician, Gandhi now appears to be constantly in campaign mode. His trips are making headlines, setting the narrative, and even forcing the government to respond.

Journalist Neerja Chowdhury said three factors were discernible in Gandhi’s strategy: “A human, emotional outreach, being combative against the government on the floor of the House, and making himself accessible for his party members.”

Personalised outreach

Political commentators are not surprised by Gandhi’s emphasis on travel and direct, personalised interactions with people.

“Reaching out to people is something that has given him traction,” Chowdhury observed. “Putting an arm around somebody, picking up a child, talking to an old woman, these are the things that resonated with people during the Bharat Jodo Yatra.”

The Bharat Jodo Yatra was a cross-country rally, during which Gandhi travelled over 3,000 kilometres, mostly on foot, from Kanyakumari in Tamil Nadu to Srinagar in Jammu and Kashmir between September 2022 and January 2023. A second leg of the yatra saw Gandhi travel from Imphal in Manipur to Mumbai, mostly in a bus, between January and March.

Supriya Shrinate, who heads Congress party’s social media and digital platforms wing, told Scroll that the two Bharat Jodo Yatras have shaped the party’s outreach strategy considerably.

“The success of the Yatras proved to be a lesson for our party that we need to speak directly to the people,” she said.

As part of this approach, on July 2, Gandhi publicised a new email address where people could contact him directly. In his tweet announcing the email address, Gandhi wrote: “I am here to speak with you, listen to you, and facilitate the true expression of the idea of India”.

Congress Working Committee member Salman Khurshid told Scroll that the government’s responses on the matters raised by Gandhi validated the success of an “alternative style of politics”.

“The media and political commentators have a set script of how politics should be done,” Khurshid said. “Rahul Gandhi’s style has always been different.”

Praveen Chakravarty, chairman of the Congress’ data analytics wing, said that Gandhi’s style of reaching out to people set him apart from Modi. “How many times have you seen Modi going to common people’s homes and hugging them and listening to them?”

Politics behind the outreach

The personalised style apart, what is the substance in Gandhi’s outreach?

Journalist Ajaz Ashraf pointed out that Gandhi’s interactions are aimed at the same sections of the population that the Congress sought to win over during the elections.

“The people he met in Hathras are poor Dalits,” he said. “The families of Agniveer jawans are again poor who have lost a young earning member.”

Ashraf described Gandhi’s politics as that of the “Hindu left” in that it seeks to “flatten caste hierarchy and distribute political, economic and cultural powers equitably, but at the same time presumes that you are a believer”.

This explains why Gandhi held up an image of the Hindu deity Shiva in Parliament, Ashraf said, even as he has been raising demands like conducting a caste census and filing up government job vacancies.

However, one community has been missing from Gandhi’s outreach. Journalist Rashid Kidwai pointed out Gandhi has not visited a single Muslim family despite 10 cases of lynchings targeting Muslims being reported in a month.

“Is the Congress ready to come out on the streets and protect the Muslims?” Kidwai asked. “I do not see that happening. You cannot take a community for granted after it has voted heavily in favour of you.”

Success on social media

Since the time of the Bharat Jodo Yatra, Gandhi’s outreach on the ground is accompanied by a substantial social media push. The effort has gradually led to an image makeover for the leader.

Meghnad S, a journalist on YouTube who tracks media and politics, said that in the past, the BJP had successfully targeted Gandhi using pejorative nicknames “pappu” (incompetent) and “shahzada” (prince). But, during the recent Parliament session, Modi’s attempt to characterise the Leader of the Opposition as “baalak buddhi”, or a juvenile mind, largely failed. “The prime minister mentioned the word so many times and tried to pin that image of Rahul Gandhi, but it has not stuck,” said Meghnad.

Meghnad also pointed out that Gandhi’s speech in the Lok Sabha had several times more views than that of Modi on the YouTube channel of the government-run Sansad TV, which broadcasts proceedings of both houses of Parliament.

But the coverage on television news channels continues to be tilted in favour of the government, he said. “There are some stray examples, like Aaj Tak recently took down a ticker alluding that Gandhi was ‘doing drama’ in Manipur, after a Congress spokesperson took it up with an anchor on a live show, but I do not see much of a change,” Meghnad said.

Shrinate said she was not worried about mainstream news channels, claiming that they had lost credibility and relevance. “Rahul Gandhi has made news channels irrelevant by not giving them a single interview during the election campaign,” she said.

Party and alliance work

But improved optics might not be enough if the Opposition wants to make a serious dent in the ruling party’s prospects, commentators say.

Kidwai said that as Leader of the Opposition, Gandhi must also work on forging greater cohesion among alliance partners of the INDIA bloc, especially in the lead up to state elections in Haryana, Maharashtra and Jharkhand later this year.

“The leader of the Opposition is seen as the shadow prime minister,” he said. By involving leaders of other parties like Samajwadi Party and Trinamool Congress, Gandhi should try and “form a shadow Cabinet”.

“It should not seem like he is running a one-man show,” Kidwai said. “That is not good optics for an alliance.”

Ashraf also said that the Congress party should calibrate its strategy when it comes to Gandhi’s interactions with people in states where alliance partners of the INDIA bloc are stronger.

“In states like Maharashtra, Jharkhand, West Bengal or Uttar Pradesh, Congress will have to be careful about not trying to be too expansive, and rather give space to its allies,” he said. “The alliance partners should not feel threatened by Rahul Gandhi’s actions. Because if the alliance breaks, Congress will lose its bulwark against the BJP.”