Congress Vice President Rahul Gandhi is truly a ball of contradictions. He remains a youth leader despite being well into his 40s. He’s always promised as a “fresh face” to politics even though he comes from India’s first family of politics. And he speaks constantly of a lack of democracy in his party, when he owes his own position to little more than his last name.
This means the Congress’ attempts to sell him to the Indian public always come across as a ineptly directed political theatre. The script is there for the taking, yet the actor doesn’t quite live up to the demands of the role.
Former environment minister Jayanthi Natarajan’s letter to Sonia Gandhi explaining her anguish at the state of the Congress also lists out one of the party’s many attempts at trying to position Rahul Gandhi for the public. Natarajan wrote that Gandhi’s office would regularly tell the environment minister to take a hard line on getting environmental clearances for certain industrial projects, a position that would earn the minister a reputation of standing in the way of development.
When that reputation got too strong though, with industry feeling that the United Progressive Alliance was an obstacle instead of ally, Natarajan alleges that she was summarily sacked, by being asked to resign. According to Natarajan’s letter, the very next day Rahul Gandhi attempted to spin her resignation as being a part of the Congress’ effort to make things smoother for business. She even claims that people in Rahul Gandhi’s office were planting stories in the media against her, so that his image could be further cemented.
Now that the allegations are out in the public though, Gandhi ‒ whose popular image is anyway muddled ‒ will neither get the benefit of being seen as pro-environment nor will he be considered pro-business. But this isn’t the first time that the Congress VP’s attempt to position himself have backfired spectacularly. Here’s a look at the party’s other failures on this front:
*Rahul Against Corruption
Just as Anna Hazare’s anti-corruption movement was at its peak, with thousands of citizens heading the activist’s call to fill the jails in August of 2011, the Congress attempted to push forward Rahul Gandhi as a solution. Sources, the tickers said, confirmed that Rahul had prevailed on the government to release Hazare from Tihar jail and allow the movement to carry out its demonstration. This would show the Congress as being sympathetic to the national sentiment and understanding in the face of an old man going to prison. Sure enough, in a clever move, Hazare refused to leave Tihar and suddenly the stories that allowing him to leave had been Rahul’s idea began to disappear.
*Rahul for UP CM
After having done a good job in the 2009 Lok Sabha elections in UP, the Congress placed their bets on Gandhi to repeat the job for the assembly polls. The Nehru-Gandhi scion campaigned for more than two months holding over 200 rallies and joining a farmer's agitation at Bhatta Parsaul. Yet the Congress ended up a distant fourth in the state, winning just 28 out of 403 seats. Immediately afterwards, all of the party’s senior leaders insisted the blame couldn’t be put on the young leader’s shoulders.
*The 'Nonsense' Ordinance
Rolling up his sleeves, Rahul Gandhi walked into a press conference calling the government’s policy “nonsense,” and then proceeded to tear up a paper bearing the text of an ordinance that would shield convicted politicians from electoral bars. The ordinance had been promulgated to negate a Supreme Court verdict which had insisted that lawmakers who were convicted of serious charges in a criminal court would be immediately disqualified from their positions.
The only problem was that the ordinance had been issued by Rahul's own government's and had been approved by the cabinet of India. Moreover, Gandhi hadn’t said anything about the ordinance before, even when a bill with a similar text had been introduced in Parliament. Instead of looking like a radical reformer willing to call out his party’s missteps, the Congress VP came off looking like a petulant child attempting to milk an issue on which the public’s stance had already become clear. “Should we look at our watches before speaking what is true?” was Rahul’s not-so-measured response to this perception.
*The Arnab Interview
“The system” was the villain of choice for Rahul Gandhi in his first properly televised interview with Arnab Goswami as he was being positioned as the rival to the Bharatiya Janata Party’s Narendra Modi in the run-up to last year’s general elections. He mentioned the system 72 times in the interview, almost always in a negative context, complaining about how it hurts the ordinary people. The only problem was that his own party had been in charge for the decade prior to his interview and for the vast majority of India’s independent history. Again, instead of coming off as a reformer, Gandhi seemed to be ignoring the fact that he was a true product of the very system he was seeking to decry.
*The Primary Challenge
Promising to bring internal democracy to a party that pushed him to the top despite Rahul Gandhi’s minimal resume, the Congress VP instituted a series of American-style primaries to decide the Lok Sabha candidates in 15 constituencies for the 2014 Lok Sabha elections. This meant Congress workers could vote to decide who would end up as the party's candidate on the ticket for each of those seats, ensuring that tickets weren't just given to the high command's favourites.
The project ended up getting pushback internally, seeing one primary winner replaced because the party wanted a stronger contender against Modi and all 15 of the primary-winning candidates lose in the general elections. Once again, an attempt to reform turned to nought.
This means the Congress’ attempts to sell him to the Indian public always come across as a ineptly directed political theatre. The script is there for the taking, yet the actor doesn’t quite live up to the demands of the role.
Former environment minister Jayanthi Natarajan’s letter to Sonia Gandhi explaining her anguish at the state of the Congress also lists out one of the party’s many attempts at trying to position Rahul Gandhi for the public. Natarajan wrote that Gandhi’s office would regularly tell the environment minister to take a hard line on getting environmental clearances for certain industrial projects, a position that would earn the minister a reputation of standing in the way of development.
When that reputation got too strong though, with industry feeling that the United Progressive Alliance was an obstacle instead of ally, Natarajan alleges that she was summarily sacked, by being asked to resign. According to Natarajan’s letter, the very next day Rahul Gandhi attempted to spin her resignation as being a part of the Congress’ effort to make things smoother for business. She even claims that people in Rahul Gandhi’s office were planting stories in the media against her, so that his image could be further cemented.
Now that the allegations are out in the public though, Gandhi ‒ whose popular image is anyway muddled ‒ will neither get the benefit of being seen as pro-environment nor will he be considered pro-business. But this isn’t the first time that the Congress VP’s attempt to position himself have backfired spectacularly. Here’s a look at the party’s other failures on this front:
*Rahul Against Corruption
Just as Anna Hazare’s anti-corruption movement was at its peak, with thousands of citizens heading the activist’s call to fill the jails in August of 2011, the Congress attempted to push forward Rahul Gandhi as a solution. Sources, the tickers said, confirmed that Rahul had prevailed on the government to release Hazare from Tihar jail and allow the movement to carry out its demonstration. This would show the Congress as being sympathetic to the national sentiment and understanding in the face of an old man going to prison. Sure enough, in a clever move, Hazare refused to leave Tihar and suddenly the stories that allowing him to leave had been Rahul’s idea began to disappear.
*Rahul for UP CM
After having done a good job in the 2009 Lok Sabha elections in UP, the Congress placed their bets on Gandhi to repeat the job for the assembly polls. The Nehru-Gandhi scion campaigned for more than two months holding over 200 rallies and joining a farmer's agitation at Bhatta Parsaul. Yet the Congress ended up a distant fourth in the state, winning just 28 out of 403 seats. Immediately afterwards, all of the party’s senior leaders insisted the blame couldn’t be put on the young leader’s shoulders.
*The 'Nonsense' Ordinance
Rolling up his sleeves, Rahul Gandhi walked into a press conference calling the government’s policy “nonsense,” and then proceeded to tear up a paper bearing the text of an ordinance that would shield convicted politicians from electoral bars. The ordinance had been promulgated to negate a Supreme Court verdict which had insisted that lawmakers who were convicted of serious charges in a criminal court would be immediately disqualified from their positions.
The only problem was that the ordinance had been issued by Rahul's own government's and had been approved by the cabinet of India. Moreover, Gandhi hadn’t said anything about the ordinance before, even when a bill with a similar text had been introduced in Parliament. Instead of looking like a radical reformer willing to call out his party’s missteps, the Congress VP came off looking like a petulant child attempting to milk an issue on which the public’s stance had already become clear. “Should we look at our watches before speaking what is true?” was Rahul’s not-so-measured response to this perception.
*The Arnab Interview
“The system” was the villain of choice for Rahul Gandhi in his first properly televised interview with Arnab Goswami as he was being positioned as the rival to the Bharatiya Janata Party’s Narendra Modi in the run-up to last year’s general elections. He mentioned the system 72 times in the interview, almost always in a negative context, complaining about how it hurts the ordinary people. The only problem was that his own party had been in charge for the decade prior to his interview and for the vast majority of India’s independent history. Again, instead of coming off as a reformer, Gandhi seemed to be ignoring the fact that he was a true product of the very system he was seeking to decry.
*The Primary Challenge
Promising to bring internal democracy to a party that pushed him to the top despite Rahul Gandhi’s minimal resume, the Congress VP instituted a series of American-style primaries to decide the Lok Sabha candidates in 15 constituencies for the 2014 Lok Sabha elections. This meant Congress workers could vote to decide who would end up as the party's candidate on the ticket for each of those seats, ensuring that tickets weren't just given to the high command's favourites.
The project ended up getting pushback internally, seeing one primary winner replaced because the party wanted a stronger contender against Modi and all 15 of the primary-winning candidates lose in the general elections. Once again, an attempt to reform turned to nought.
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