If the next Lok Sabha lasts its full term, she will be 72 by the end of it. Even after treatment, the medical problems are unlikely to get much better. And her son will have had another half a decade to put his imprint on India’s Grand Old Party. For all intents and purposes, this is Congress President Sonia Gandhi’s last election.
As far as farewell tours go, this one seems quite tepid. The 67-year-old made her first proper campaign appearance in Delhi on Sunday, just 10 days ahead of elections in the capital. Coughing her way through a short speech, Gandhi reminded the audience of the Congress’ freedom-fighting bonafides, promised them that "we will always be with you", and gave a very genuine, almost wistful, vote of thanks. Then she was gone.
“I remember campaigns where she would show up in the scorching heat, in places like Telangana, walk in like Indira Gandhi and rouse the entire crowd,” Kay Benedict, a noted journalist who has covered the Congress for decades, told Scroll.in. “All of that is over. There is a feeling within the party that, because she has undergone medical treatment, and also because of the narrative about empowering the youth and handing over to Rahul, that this is it. This is her last election.”
That statement, as with anything in Indian politics, comes with plenty of caveats. For one, the next Lok Sabha might end up having a fractured mandate and might not last its term. For another, coming out of retirement is not exactly unheard of. Whatever others might wish for, there is no "best before" date for Indian politicians. But many in the party already seem to have elevated her to Queen Mother status.
“It’s there in the body language,” Rasheed Kidwai, said author of Sonia: A Biography. “Not just of her, but the others in the Congress too. After the enormity of the defeat in the [Delhi] Assembly elections and the toll of her health problems, there is this impression that the Congress is in a transition phase. They still look up to her… but the Sonia era, say, is from 1998 to 2014.”
In Delhi, the Congress tried desperately to force a spin on their lacklustre campaign in the capital by drawing — as always — from its rich history. Before Gandhi arrived, the party’s leaders kept making the claim that this was the first major rally in Ajmal Khan Park since 1979. That was the year that Sonia Gandhi’s mother-in-law Indira Gandhi ran her post-Emergency election campaign, which included a speech in this park, on the way to a landslide victory.
This one, though, could barely keep the audience interested. The biggest cheers of the evening came when the crowds, bussed in primarily from New Delhi constituencies, caught their first glimpse of her walking onstage. The rest of the applause seemed mostly perfunctory, with a brief up-tick when Gandhi took a dig at former Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal.
“There are people who think running a government is child’s play,” Gandhi said. “You’ve seen in Delhi what happens when they think that — the government runs away.” The customary attack on the Bharatiya Janata Party, in this case a lecture on how it is the Congress that truly understands the meaning of nationalism, also failed to register. The only surprise of the evening came when Gandhi insisted that her government always had goodwill, even for the Opposition. This might have been true for much of the Sonia-era, but it is no longer the case.
“Sonia was more of an accommodating person," Kidwai said. "She was a mother figure. She had this way of taking maximum consultations and talking to everyone. Even with her opponents, like Sharad Pawar, Sushma Swaraj, LK Advani, AB Vajpayee, she built cordial relations. Rahul is very different, he is very aloof [and] doesn’t treat the older leaders in the same way. The Congress under Rahul is going to be very different.”
Of course, the opponents aren’t the same either. BJP prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi’s approach is not one of accommodation. As he drags the BJP out of its Vajpayee-Advani years, leaving senior leaders by the wayside, Rahul will have to react — and there have been murmurs he might do so by imitating the Congress’ arch-enemy and taking an axe to the old guard.
That will have to wait until after the elections. Between now and May 16, Sonia Gandhi is still President and the party continues to bet on her over Rahul. Still, if she wants to have something of the vindication that the Congress got after coming to power in 2004 despite everyone's predictions to the contrary, she will have to find a way to muster more energy than she did in Delhi on Sunday.
“Over the last 10 years, the UPA [United Progressive Alliance] under Manmohan [Singh] did revolutionary work,” she read out in Hindi, and then looked up to the audience. “I don’t need to list them out for you, you all know about it.”
As far as farewell tours go, this one seems quite tepid. The 67-year-old made her first proper campaign appearance in Delhi on Sunday, just 10 days ahead of elections in the capital. Coughing her way through a short speech, Gandhi reminded the audience of the Congress’ freedom-fighting bonafides, promised them that "we will always be with you", and gave a very genuine, almost wistful, vote of thanks. Then she was gone.
“I remember campaigns where she would show up in the scorching heat, in places like Telangana, walk in like Indira Gandhi and rouse the entire crowd,” Kay Benedict, a noted journalist who has covered the Congress for decades, told Scroll.in. “All of that is over. There is a feeling within the party that, because she has undergone medical treatment, and also because of the narrative about empowering the youth and handing over to Rahul, that this is it. This is her last election.”
That statement, as with anything in Indian politics, comes with plenty of caveats. For one, the next Lok Sabha might end up having a fractured mandate and might not last its term. For another, coming out of retirement is not exactly unheard of. Whatever others might wish for, there is no "best before" date for Indian politicians. But many in the party already seem to have elevated her to Queen Mother status.
“It’s there in the body language,” Rasheed Kidwai, said author of Sonia: A Biography. “Not just of her, but the others in the Congress too. After the enormity of the defeat in the [Delhi] Assembly elections and the toll of her health problems, there is this impression that the Congress is in a transition phase. They still look up to her… but the Sonia era, say, is from 1998 to 2014.”
In Delhi, the Congress tried desperately to force a spin on their lacklustre campaign in the capital by drawing — as always — from its rich history. Before Gandhi arrived, the party’s leaders kept making the claim that this was the first major rally in Ajmal Khan Park since 1979. That was the year that Sonia Gandhi’s mother-in-law Indira Gandhi ran her post-Emergency election campaign, which included a speech in this park, on the way to a landslide victory.
This one, though, could barely keep the audience interested. The biggest cheers of the evening came when the crowds, bussed in primarily from New Delhi constituencies, caught their first glimpse of her walking onstage. The rest of the applause seemed mostly perfunctory, with a brief up-tick when Gandhi took a dig at former Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal.
“There are people who think running a government is child’s play,” Gandhi said. “You’ve seen in Delhi what happens when they think that — the government runs away.” The customary attack on the Bharatiya Janata Party, in this case a lecture on how it is the Congress that truly understands the meaning of nationalism, also failed to register. The only surprise of the evening came when Gandhi insisted that her government always had goodwill, even for the Opposition. This might have been true for much of the Sonia-era, but it is no longer the case.
“Sonia was more of an accommodating person," Kidwai said. "She was a mother figure. She had this way of taking maximum consultations and talking to everyone. Even with her opponents, like Sharad Pawar, Sushma Swaraj, LK Advani, AB Vajpayee, she built cordial relations. Rahul is very different, he is very aloof [and] doesn’t treat the older leaders in the same way. The Congress under Rahul is going to be very different.”
Of course, the opponents aren’t the same either. BJP prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi’s approach is not one of accommodation. As he drags the BJP out of its Vajpayee-Advani years, leaving senior leaders by the wayside, Rahul will have to react — and there have been murmurs he might do so by imitating the Congress’ arch-enemy and taking an axe to the old guard.
That will have to wait until after the elections. Between now and May 16, Sonia Gandhi is still President and the party continues to bet on her over Rahul. Still, if she wants to have something of the vindication that the Congress got after coming to power in 2004 despite everyone's predictions to the contrary, she will have to find a way to muster more energy than she did in Delhi on Sunday.
“Over the last 10 years, the UPA [United Progressive Alliance] under Manmohan [Singh] did revolutionary work,” she read out in Hindi, and then looked up to the audience. “I don’t need to list them out for you, you all know about it.”
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