Congress takes a call dial R for Rahul

There are inherent hazards in writing an article on an active political leader. Universally, political leaders also face a fundamental danger of being constantly compared to immortal members of the political clan if she or he happens to have a good pedigree. In Rahul Gandhi’s case, comparisons have at times been drawn with his father, his grandmother, and great grandfather.

Being the fifth generation of the family that has at times been considered and projected as the ‘First Family’ of Indian politics by sycophantic apparatchiks of the party, Rahul Gandhi has had failure as a constant companion, partly because the times are so loaded against him and also because of his own limitations. But all instances of fiasco that have been apportioned to Rahul have not always been his doing. To be fair to Rahul, he has not been allowed to be his own man. It is a different matter that there is little clarity still regarding the kind of man he wishes to be.

Like his father, Rahul Gandhi was a reluctant entrant to politics. Just like his father would have preferred his space in another setting, Rahul would have liked a small alcove in the Caribbean Sea or some other place of choice. But while Indira Gandhi’s assassination transformed Rajiv Gandhi overnight, in Rahul’s case, the continuing presence of his mother has been an impediment. A couple of years ago, when Sonia Gandhi suddenly went abroad for an undisclosed medical condition, a mechanism was created to put Rahul Gandhi in the driver’s seat. But with the crisis ebbing, his elevation as party commander got stuck. He displayed indications of wanting to take charge, but found little support from the old guard of the party.

It already was bad enough that the United Progressive Alliance had a dual power structure, with the Prime Minister and the Congress president often pulling the cart in two opposite directions. This was compounded by parallel power structures in the Congress party – the old guard and the Rahul brigade, those manning corporate-style ‘war rooms’. As a result, even while Rahul Gandhi was leading the campaign in the recent assembly polls in five states, the old guard was waging a smear campaign.  The effort just went into over-drive the moment the verdict went against the Congress party.

The problem is that Sonia Gandhi has worked her way with one set of power hierarchies and this, led by Ahmed Patel, her political secretary, got threatened. This group was essentially insecure about the rise of Rahul since 2004, when he entered the electoral fray. Their anxiety stemmed from the knowledge that new leaders invariably build new power structures around them: Indira Gandhi did so, and so did his father, Rajiv. The old guard stands to lose with Rahul’s emergence, and thus kept throwing in a spanner or two.

The problem with the Congress party is that it believed in 2009 that the party had won the 2014 election as well. As a result, the party became lazy and allowed the government to let matters slip to the point of no-return on several counts. As far as Rahul was concerned, he began on an over-ambitious note trying to regain Uttar Pradesh – a state where Congress has not won state elections since 1984. He thought that it would be easy to politically regain the territory by a few padyatras and roadshows. Perhaps a less daunting target would have been strategically better and not result in the humiliation he suffered when Congress came a cropper in the 2012 assembly elections.

The latest verbal pyrotechnics by Rahul, over the Ordinance that sought to protect tainted politicians, began on a note of the party becoming a bystander to a leader who was moving to take charge brutally. But eventually, Rahul fell by the wayside and did not push matters to its logical end. This once again demonstrated that both Rahul and his mother had a common trait: Often they would go just half way up the tree and not the complete distance. In politics, this does not work, and ruthlessness is often the need of the hour.

The year 2014 begins on a note with Rahul Gandhi and the Congress party having little or no expectations from the year. The year has also begun with little expectation from Rahul. The much-hyped Modi vs Rahul presidential style campaign has come a cropper even before it could take off on in real earnest. In the election year, there is probably not a single state where the party is comfortably placed. Karnataka is probably the best bet for the party for a respectable performance, but the state accounts for just about five percent of the strength of the Lok Sabha.

In the cyclical path of its development, the Congress party started entering a low trough from the winter of 2009. It will probably enter the lowest point in 2014. This year will mark a decade of Rahul Gandhi being in politics. The balance-sheet of this decade in public life will be drawn up in a year from now. It will depend on which of the trajectories Rahul Gandhi opts for.

The first would be to give in to the old guard in the party and hope that the strategy they opt for prevents complete decimation of the party. The second option would be to continue assuming control of the party, but this would mean telling his mother that he has to run things his way. However, this path would mean entering the fray in 2014 with the clear assumption of sitting in the Opposition, because Rahul Gandhi talks of a long-term vision, nothing in the immediate run. The third option is, of course, always there: take a long walk and vacate the space for others in the family or organisation. The choice is his!

(The author is a Delhi-based senior journalist and author, most recently of Narendra Modi: The Man, The Times)