The best day for a smile for Rahul Gandhi?

Hyderabad: So, why did Rahul Gandhi choose to announce the Congress’ worst-ever election day (in three decades) with a beaming, coast-to-coast smile? Amidst the Narendra Modi pandemonium, that seems to be the only question many are throwing at a campaign described simply as, lacklustre and spiritless.

Also, was that bizarre quickly-put-together press conference the best way for a vice president of an organisation to break the bad news to thousands of “employees” on a day the media used words such as “decimated and destroyed” to explain the state of your enterprise? What was that smile? Relief that a nightmare election was over?

It definitely was not solemn and even children know that’s not the face to have on once the results are out and your name is not on the list.  
Social media too, were quick to pick up on the strange display of defeat.

Trending under the Twitter handle #whyisRahulGandhiSmiling, were hundreds of tweets from web users taking a shot at Mr Smiley.

“I think Rahul was happy to lose as he can now watch Chotta Bheem all day,” said @monishgutka.

#Whyisrahulsmiling even gave rise to a thread of insanely funny responses. “Why is Rahul Gandhi smiling? because it’s vacation time,” wrote @Keerthi542k9. Another user wondered why is ‘RaGa’ ‘acting as if he just won a MissIndia contest”.

Poor Arvind Kejriwal too was dragged into the Q&A. “Why is Rahul Gandhi smiling? Answer: The Tata Nano has more seats than AAP ,” wrote #copiedidea.

Jokes aside, Rahul’s face also betrayed the obvious gist of his admission.“We’ve messed up, sorry guys”. Off Web, the experts however, are more forgiving.

Advertising veteran Prahlad Kakkar says: “I feel it was a sign of relief that elections were over but at the same time, I believe this was a brave way to handle the situation. There were two things Rahul Gandhi could do, cry or take things lightly with a smile.”

A more in-depth analysis comes from image guru Dilip Cherian. “While this approach is not the best media-wise and can be described as counter-intuitive, I would say Rahul’s is the face of a man who seemed to have a plan. Also, the face reveals a very specific mindset and it is a window into the kind of man Rahul really is. The smile was his way of dealing with the situation.”

But the “pure, uncontrolled strangeness” of Rahul’s face was well-described by Twitter user @MohMaaya, who wrote,“Rahul was asked by his PR to play cool, smile and not look depressed. As usual, he overdid it.”