For victory, both Rahul and Modi need an image makeover, if not an attitudinal change

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With the general elections almost two years away speculation is rife. The favourite question doing the rounds is whether the Congress led by Rahul Gandhi will be able to defeat a NDA alliance led by Narendra Modi?

There are many ifs and buts. A major blow for Modi was the recent conviction of his minister Maya Kodnani in the 2002 Gujarat riots. Modi’s claim that no evidence had been found of the Sangh Parivar’s involvement in the anti-Muslim riots has been severely dented. Rahul has a different set of problems, particularly economic.

Inflation has risen steadily and the recent hike in petrol, diesel, and LPG products together with the widely controversial Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) in multi-brand retail trade may create a difficult situation for the Congress in time for the general elections.

Rahul’s problems are not just the Opposition (NDA) but also his own allies. Mulayam Singh Yadav is obviously trying all sorts of political combinations. As he put it, he is not a saint and has a legitimate right to be the prime minister. Rahul’s electioneering has been sporadic. There has been no sustained campaign by him for a long period excluding those for the UP elections in which the Congress was trounced.

The problem with the Congress is that it is largely a collection of coteries, caste groups and dynasties. Its organisational structure is loose. On the other hand, the Sangh parivar has the solid bedrock of the RSS at its core together with the VHP, BMS, ABVP and other fronts. However, the famous wave factor may come into account. But one can speculate on that only much closer to the elections.

Modi has serious organisational problems. Many of his senior party colleagues disapprove of his attitude and consider him brash and temperamental. For example: he talks of his contribution to Gujarat’s growth. But he does not refer adequately to his predecessors like Chimanbhai Patel. Not to speak of the major contribution by Madhavsinh Solanki to the development of the state.

Amongst older Sangh activists this must rankle. The massacre in Gujarat 2002 has still polarised the state. By and large, the secular vote, including the Muslims, will be stridently against Modi in the next elections in Gujarat. But the moot point is how the events in Gujarat will affect other constituencies in the country where the NDA will try and project a more neutral and much less communal image.

The real problem for Modi would therefore depend on the decision of the RSS on whether he will be anointed the prime ministerial candidate or not. In some senses, Modi has been his own worst enemy. A false poster showing him together with Nitish Kumar enraged the latter and he demanded the withdrawal of the poster, which was duly done.

These are the kind of antics that get Modi into trouble. But there is another deeper problem that Modi will have to face. In a country where minorities are more than 20 per cent, Modi will have to refashion his image into that of a more secular, tolerant and open-minded politician. In a general election, the yet unexplained burning of the Sabarmati Express and the new questions raised by the recent court verdict which went against the Sangh Parivar, including the conviction of ministers like Maya Kodnani, is a potentially dangerous blow. If some more of these verdicts are arrived at it will be very difficult for Modi to do a makeover of his political image.

Rahul in contrast has a much cleaner image and has much less to answer for. His main problem is the lack of a sustained campaign well before the elections when economic decisions have tarnished the Congress image. There is no indication of any galvanising by the Congress of its dormant organisations to take on the formidable Sangh Parivar.

Of course Prime Minister Manmohan Singh gave a brief explanation of the price hikes and the bringing of FDI into the sensitive retail sector which employs some 44 million families. Whatever the PM may say, many will still have doubts until the coming months show otherwise. In any case the farmers and transporters will find the diesel hike increasing their costs.

Talking of reforms as a panacea will only convert the converted. For the majority Indians prices will go up even more sharply. And the allusions the Prime Minister made about bringing the economy out of a morass in 1991 will have few takers.

Therefore, the Rahul vs Modi struggle will operate on two different planes. For Rahul, it is largely the economy and to a lesser extent dynasty. For Modi, it is his national and international image as the overseer of the communal holocaust of 2002. Both will find the going tough. 

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After a period of relative inactivity, Rahul Gandhi is beginning to get involved again in party matters. Pramod Kumar examines what it means in the run up to the 2014 elections

For the Nehru-Gandhis, to enter national politics and immediately establish their suzerainty is but a natural sequence of events. Contemporary Indian history, from Jawaharlal to Sonia, will willingly vouchsafe for it. Neither in the case of Indira nor Rajiv was the transition to active politics ever in any doubt.

Then what it is that is keeping Rahul Gandhi away from the family occupation? There is that something that continues to raise question marks over his leadership, indeed even his entry into national politics.

Since the disastrous UP assembly election results, these interrogatives have grown in number. Was Rahul’s entry into politics not well timed? Or did it come at a time when political conditions were adverse for the Congress?

This strange, slightly unexplained vacuum at the top has prompted a series of strategic discourses. There is one school which says the time to introduce sister Priyanka Gandhi has come – an oblique hint that the heir apparent may not have what it takes to handle the hurly-burly of Indian politics.

The other school of thought believes that like father Rajiv, Rahul will gradually mature into politics, learn the ropes and come into his own.

There is also the view that laptop experts in Rahul’s central Delhi office may know a lot about information technology but precious little about India’s political ethos. But nuances notwithstanding, central questions remains unanswered. When will Rahul reveal his magic? Could it be too late before he shows his hand? There are those like UP Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav who believe that Rahul should agree to a position either in the government or the party and then take it from there. Congress insiders say that Rahul could accept a super general secretary kind of position in the party. Showing due deference to party elders, Rahul had accepted the relatively humble position of general secretary; in reality he could have got anything he wanted.

But it is quite likely that this deference has been seen as a weakness by party stalwarts. The kind of statements issued by senior Congress leaders in the run up to the UP elections without Rahul ever interfering once, has given him the image of a 'soft’ leader. With his elevation as general secretary of the party’s youth wing, Rahul had hoped to develop a dedicated band of Youth Congress workers. A failed talent hunt through the states put paid to his plans.

There are many reasons being attributed to this aborted mission, the most prominent of them being that virtually every senior Congress leader wanted his son or daughter to join Rahul at the cost of dedicated party workers – with preferably a party ticket to boot!

Proof of this typical Congress skullduggery has come in Uttarakhand where Chief Minister Vijay Bahuguna’s son has got the Congress ticket to contest from the Pauri Lok Sabha seat, ignoring claims of senior notables. The result of such a machination is that Rahul is having a tough time answering questions to people in his own constituency.

But party insiders say that with the Congress rout in UP and his aborted mission to develop a dedicated youth cadre, Rahul is on the introspection trail. He has adopted a lower profile than ever before and is known to ask party workers to give their complaints in writing.

It is also said about Rahul that his ability to communicate with the common worker is not as effective as it should be. Intervening with words like 'let me tell you’ or ‘let me elaborate’ just did not go down well with the electorate in UP.

But Congress leaders insist that if the Congress scion elaborated on central assistance to the state governments, there was no harm in it, considering that other Congress leaders were not doing the same. In addition, they say, that UP is a caste laboratory where it is not too easy to unravel the winning combination. If it were, the Congress would not have been out of power in the state for so long.

Some indication of this has come in the Anthony Committee report on the UP poll debacle submitted to the party high command. According to it, about 122 A-plus assembly seats personally selected by Rahul Gandhi would have yielded good dividends if senior leaders had decided not to shoot their mouths off.

Rahul’s next litmus test is going to come in Gujarat, expected to go to polls by the end of 2012. Already the Rahul Gandhi vs Narendra Modi chorus is growing into a crescendo, with punters attaching the tag of a semi-final before the 2014 General Elections. Party insiders admit that Modi is nearly certain to return, albeit with a slimmer majority.

That leads to other problems. Party leaders fear in the eventuality of Modi coming back, knives will be out for the Congress leader sooner rather than later. In Gujarat too, the problem is the same as UP. Big party leaders have abdicated their responsibility and handed over the state to powerful opposition leaders on a platter.

The larger question is this: if the Congress fails yet again in Gujarat, could it mean a full stop to Rahul’s fledging political career? There are no clear answers. With the UPA poised to bring in legislations like the popular Food Security bill after the Gujarat elections, it is hoped that the tide will turn in its favour.

The Congress has also taken Mulayam Singh Yadav’s attempts at cobbling up a Third Front seriously. The top party leadership is loathe to lending outside support as they did in the forgettable decade of the 1990s when a slew of rank outsiders came to occupy the country’s top post with Congress’ outside support.

Nonetheless, the year-and-a-half left of Manmohan Singh’s rule is time enough for Rahul to consolidate the party’s base. There are indications that after a period of relative inactivity, Rahul is beginning to leave his imprint on the functioning of the government.

Handing over additional charge of the Railway Ministry to Rural Development Minister CP Joshi, the appointment of Nirmal Khatri as president of the UP Congress against stiff local opposition and the removal of Digvijay Singh as Congress UP observer in favour of Union minister Ghulam Nabi Azad, are all indictors that Rahul is beginning to flex his muscles again. There is also talk of a larger revamp in the party organisation.

Congress leaders claim the situation is not as bad as people believe. There is talk of an organisational shake up and many few faces could be thrown up from the states. "If the party works on the plans charted out by Sonia Gandhi, the results of the 2014 would come as a pleasant surprise to us,’’ says a leader. If that happens, the time for Rahul’s redemption could well have arrived.

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With Rahul Gandhi's emphasis on galvanising the party's moribund youth cadre, the Congress believes its prospects are beginning to look bright

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An ace up his sleeve

It is well known in Congress circles that if there is anyone who cares most dearly about its future, it is its president Sonia Gandhi. The second name on that list is Rahul Gandhi. While under the UPA-I dispensation, Sonia Gandhi focused hard on 'achievements' of the party, the same period was used by Rahul to activate Congress' youth cadre. The Left Front, then supporters of the government, were the watchdogs: an opinion sought from the Left would entail such a research-based reply that the issue in concern would cease to be relevant. In other words, problems use to take care of themselves.

But UPA-II has been different. In the face of strong tearaway criticism of the government recently in the 2G payoffs and embarrassing exposure from WikiLeaks on the monies paid to buy votes of Members of Parliament (MPs) during the 2008 no-confidence vote, the pressure from the party on the government has been nearly as strong as it was from the Left Front during the UPA government's first term.

Those leaders in the Congress who were worried about the future of the party as well as the Gandhi family, have changed colours. Under pressure from the party high command, every little grievance now needs redressal, a routine party report cannot just be pushed under the carpet or treated casually. It has to be acted upon and pronto.

For instance, Sonia Gandhi was recently in London when a Delhi newspaper published a report of how a former union minister close to the family had utilised the services of a small time Congressman to buy MP votes. According to well placed party sources, Sonia ordered a report to be placed on her table before she returned from her sojourn explaining the potential damage that WikiLeaks may have caused the party.

The party report suggested that not much was likely to happen to the UPA in WikiLeaks, if anything it would be the BJP which would have a lot to answer. Instead, this committee which dealt with challenges and possibilities, has proposed that economic reforms need a human face, inflation be brought down, relief be given to the rural sector and young Congress cadres be organised at booth level.

The party is now leaning on the government to implement the proposals of this report. Cleverly, the Congress decision to involve the public accounts committee (PAC) in the 2G investigations is designed to keep it at loggerheads with the JPC, which is pursuing a similar probe and has already summoned Tata chairman Ratan Tata and Niira Radia.

According to Congress calculations, state elections in Tamil Nadu and West Bengal would be over and the party could then devote itself to strategising for the future. But central to all these themes is the invigorating of youth cadres which have the desired energy to get involved in mass contact programmes. Importantly, this team of leaders close to Rahul Gandhi believe that old party organisations had failed to promote a second, well defined line of leadership and that this is the time to activate that second line.

In the same vein, the party has prepared a Vision Paper 2014, which points out that regional parties have adroitly exploited regional sentiments, cashing on regional problems and soaring aspirations. In the context, the Paper has said that the party should stop thinking about the two-party system and instead concentrate on coalition governments as they were the immediate foreseeable future.
The recent seat-sharing arrangements that Congress has entered into with regional parties going to polls, is a result of that thought process. Both in West Bengal and Tamil Nadu, it has Trinamool and AIADMK respectively. General Secretary Oscar Fernandes told TSI that "regional sentiments cannot be ignored.'' Asked if the party would think of accommodating the SP or BSP in the UPA or contest elections jointly, Fernandes said since these parties were not part of the government, that possibility has ruled itself out.

The Paper has clearly set out a target – or more specifically, sought to maintain one. It believes that the 206 seats and 28 per cent vote share that it got in the 2009 elections, should be kept intact.

To attain that goal, the Paper says that logistical support and organisational strength are critical. No better evidence of it comes than from the party headquarters at 24 Akbar Road where currently about 25 jeeps with UP-32 registration numbers are parked waiting to go to West Bengal for the assembly elections. Before this, in the Bihar elections, Rajasthan numbered cars were sent from the same location. The trend began with Rajiv Gandhi when he sent out brand new Maruti Gypsies for poll campaigns: no surprise that none ever came back and rumour has it that one former MP from eastern UP still uses an old Gypsy!

According to Rahul's concept of logistical support, the need for cars is different this time. The party plans to give them to needy candidates, wherever required. In addition, funding of candidates and providing them with uninterrupted publicity material is on the cards.

Emphasising the need for elementary poll booth management, cadres in Bihar, West Bengal, Tamil Nadu, Rajasthan, Himachal Pradesh, Haryana and Madhya Pradesh have been put through a Back to Basics course, whose preliminary session ended around Holi and the second is likely to resume after Navratras.

Says BJP leader Ravi Shankar Prasad, "Our Back to Basics meant for the 2014 general elections has been stolen by Congress' heir apparent Rahul.'' Retorts Congress general secretary Janardan Dwivedi: "We are always prepared for elections and there is no question of copying the BJP. Had we done that, we would have been sitting in the Opposition.''

But as ever, UP remains the most elusive prize the Congress and its president aspire for. Working towards that and inducting Beni Prasad Verma into the Union Cabinet is part of the new initiative. Verma – with his own vision 2014 – has reportedly told the high command it may not be a bad idea to work out some sort of understanding with Ajit Singh in western UP to strengthen the party's base.
Not surprisingly, a majority of those involved in Rahul's ambitious plans are the youth. According to party observers, these are long-term prospects, but if pursued consistently, could produce unexpected results when the country is ready to go in for General Elections 2014.

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