Rahul Gandhi Needs to Pick His Poison – Power or Philosophy

BJP certainly does not see Congress as its rival in 2024, but it is still its major adversary, though it will not admit it

Shekhar Gupta 

Has Rahul Gandhi’s Bharat JodoYatra, entering Delhi now after 107 days, bombed as a political move, or has it made the intended impact for his party? With this Lal Singh Chaddha-esque (sorry, Forrest Gump) campaign, has Rahul redeemed himself as a mass leader, or only reaffirmed that he’s the ‘Pappu’ his detractors see him as? And lastly, where do he and his party go after this ends in Srinagar in some 43 days?

In our search for answers, we stay with our favouritethree-questions rule. First, does the Congress party matter? Second, what do Congress people want? Finally, what does Rahul want? If you put the first to NarendraModi, Amit Shah, or any senior BJP leader, you will have the answer. They will say it doesn’t matter at all — a party in terminal decline, owned by a fading dynasty. Then check their actions.

Nothing triggers the BJP leadership and its political machine more than any move by the Congress, even a routine statement by Rahul Gandhi. The BJP social media machine tracks each twist and turn, step and speech from the yatra. As you’d expect, their running commentary has its own spin.

The BJP will never admit it, but it is surer than any other party — including UPA members — that the Congress is its biggest adversary still. At least until 2024. The Congress’s 20 per cent share of the national vote is still intact, AAP has failed to hurt it badly in Gujarat as many (including this columnist) had expected, it has another state under its belt, and will be the only formidable challenge in the state elections coming up in 2023.

The BJP certainly doesn’t see the Congress as a challenge for 2024, but the latter is the only party capable of breaking its momentum in the run-up to that. And a party that’s now got so used to winning thrives on momentum. Karnataka, Chhattisgarh, Rajasthan, and Madhya Pradesh are in the BJP’s electoral airspace, and the only hostile lurking in its radarscope is the Congress.

Plus, today there is only one party building a campaign proposition in ideological terms. Bharat Jodo versus Bharat Todo. Love versus hate. Secular versus communal.The aamaadmi versus Adani/Ambani.Gandhi versus Savarkar. You can be on one side or the other.

You may argue that all this is fake and hypocritical. That doesn’t change the fact that the Congress is the only party even trying to set these binaries. The AamAadmi Party avoids all of these, sticking to schools, health, free this and free that. Other parties are all limited to their respective states. If you are a BJP backer, you might find this laughable. You’d ask why Modi and Shah would even bother about Rahul and Congress. But they do. Because they are serious politicians who win elections, not mere fanboys. That’s why their priority is to ensure Rahul cannot shed his ‘Pappu’ image.

The second question — what do the Congress people want — is easily answered in one word: Power. Why else would they be in politics? Which brings us to the third question. What does Rahul want? Which is where we get into trouble.

Because we’ve been asking that question since 2004 and failing to answer it. Is the yatra telling us something new? Does he, like his party comrades, want power? Does he, instead, want to be a new moral force? Non-electoral but at the same time not apolitical?A philosopher, not a king? And if so, who’d be the king that philosopher Rahul would dispense advice and wisdom to?

Rahul did start a debate of sorts on the day he took over as party vice-president in Jaipur and described the “power that everybody seeks” as poison. I had then countered this as a totally flawed proposition in this National Interest published on 26 April, 2013.

In a democracy, we had argued, power isn’t a poison. It is a wonderful gift, an honour and a cherished privilege that the voters give you. Good leaders, we still argue, should embrace it with joy, gratitude, and humility. Power and public office are synonymous with public trust. That power is poison is a feudal proposition, and should be abhorred in democracies.

If Rahul still does not want power, as indicated by his absence in the recent election campaigns, what does he want? If Rahul Gandhi’s primary objective is to rebuild his tired, demoralised, much-defeated party, he will use the yatra to raise its morale, bring in a new spirit, an ideological rejuvenation, and new energy. Meanwhile the process of bringing democracy to party bodies will go on.

He’s told us since 2004 that ushering in real democracy within his party, or what we may describe as de-f