Stable, reliable, aggressive: How a new Rahul Gandhi has emerged after polls

Is it a consequence of his newly acquired status as Leader of Opposition in the Lok Sabha? Or is it a continuation of his Bharat Jodo Yatra? Or maybe, just the burden of continuously disproving his critics who, for two decades, branded him an insincere politician? Call it what you will, but a month after the Lok Sabha poll results, the Congress’s Rahul Gandhi appears to be an atypically busy man.

Unlike the not-so-distant past, the Rae Bareli MP hasn’t left Indian shores nor disappeared from the public gaze ever since the Lok Sabha outcome showed a glimmer of hope for the Congress’s electoral revival and palpably augmented his political persona. Instead, visibly buoyed by the results and, arguably, aware that any slip-up now would dent the gains he and his party have made, Rahul has hit the ground running.

A busy Rahul

Over the past month, Rahul has led the combined Opposition charge against the Narendra Modi government in the Lok Sabha, kept up his diatribe against the prime minister on a host of issues, and intensified his public engagements.

If on one day, he was in Uttar Pradesh’s Hathras to console families of those killed in a stampede at a religious congregation, on the next, he was in Manipur to meet, for a third time in the past year, victims of the ongoing ethnic unrest in the north-eastern state. If his maiden speech in the Lok Sabha as the Leader of the Opposition (LoP) triggered a clash between BJP and Congress workers in Gujarat, he was quick to visit the state to meet his party colleagues.

Proving BJP wrong

And in between juggling these commitments and making a quick dash to Rae Bareli, Rahul made time to continue with his hybrid version of the Bharat Jodo Yatra — meeting loco pilots and construction workers at the New Delhi Railway Station and the national capital’s GTB Nagar, respectively, to understand the challenges they face while also forcefully raising the concerns of students staring at an uncertain future due to the NEET mess and standing his ground on the need to scrap the Agniveer scheme.

What is clear through all of this is that the man the BJP ecosystem as well as numerous political commentators often mockingly described as the greatest strength of Narendra Modi has kept his jabs coming thick and fast for the prime minister while not losing sight of his poll-time commitments to the electorate.

No more the same

Congress sources suggest it would be unfair to declare that this is a “new Rahul Gandhi” or that their leader is undergoing yet another image makeover. Instead, they assert that the Rae Bareli MP is merely “continuing to push the political vision that he had articulated through the course of his (Kanyakumari to Kashmir) Bharat Jodo Yatra”. Whatever the case, Rahul’s aggressive political outreach even a month after the poll results is distinctly different from his previous track record.

Those in the party who can claim some proximity to the Lok Sabha LoP say Rahul’s recent political manoeuvres reaffirm that notwithstanding the Congress’ inability to form the government for a third consecutive time, he remains resolute on the issues with which he and his party had gone to the people seeking a mandate. Additionally, it is also a “clear signal to party leaders and workers alike that there is no room for complacency now and that there should be no slack in the efforts to revitalise the party just because the next elections are five years away”.

More accommodative now

“Every time Rahul does something that defies the perception of him that was scrupulously built by the BJP over the past 20 years with help from a section of the media, analysts of all kinds start shouting ‘image makeover’... fact is, what Rahul is doing today is nothing different from what he has been doing for some years now, especially since the first Bharat Jodo Yatra,” Congress MP Imran Pratapgarhi told The Federal.

A leader who is also the party in-charge for a few states claimed that “the only major difference that we in the party can feel is that Rahul has become more accommodating of the expectations that the Congress has of him... after some initial reluctance, he accepted the post of LoP just as the Congress Working Committee had asked him to and he also decided to retain the Rae Bareli seat despite being personally inclined to continue as the MP from Wayanad”.

What verdict means

A section of party leaders believes that the electoral losses that the BJP suffered in the Lok Sabha battle despite eventually succeeding in forming the government may also have been a “major influence” on the way Rahul wanted to approach his politics now.

“If we look at the results dispassionately, the Congress’s own gains were not huge even though it is true that we had all the odds stacked against us but the bigger takeaway from the poll result is that the perception that Modi’s is invincible has been broken... Naturally that is a huge shot in the arm for us and particularly for Rahul; maybe Rahul thinks now is the right time to intensify our offensive against Modi because there are crucial Assembly elections that are due in the next few months and we can’t be afford to lose the momentum we have gained,” said another Congress functionary.

Retaining momentum

Those close to Rahul also claim that he is “eager to prove himself worthy” of the first constitutional post he has held in the two decades of his public life — that of the Lok Sabha LoP.

“Being the LoP isn’t limited to his involvement in Lok Sabha proceedings; it is a huge responsibility which, in a way, pits him directly opposite Modi... Rahul knows his rivals and critics are just waiting for any slip-up from his side so that they can start running him down again but he clearly is in no mood to oblige them... Besides, he understands that there is a spike in goodwill for him and the Congress after the Lok Sabha results and he wants to capitalise on it before it starts waning,” said a Congress leader who worked closely with Rahul during both his cross-country yatras.

Congress sources say Rahul has broadly identified the people (mostly trusted lieutenants he had been working closely with) who will function as his secretariat for the Lok Sabha, giving him a steady stock of ammunition to pillory the Modi regime both inside and outside Parliament. He is also keen to continue his interactions with people from different walks of life, particularly the economically weak and socially oppressed, as was evident in his meetings with loco pilots and construction workers.

Revitalising the Congress

Together with Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge and Priyanka Gandhi, who is set to make her electoral debut in the yet-unannounced Wayanad by-election, Rahul will also be involved in efforts of revitalising the Congress and drawing up its strategy for various Assembly polls. Most importantly, said a close Rahul aide, the Rae Bareli MP would “be the ideological anchor of the party; articulating the Congress’s stand on key issues, including contentious ones such as the importance of delineating BJP’s militant Hindutva from Hinduism and exposing Modi’s farcical claims of being a protector of democracy and our Constitution”.