ENARADA, New Delhi
By Ajay N Jha
The amount of eye balls Congress Vice President Rahul Gandhi garnered for himself during last 24 hours across the country for debunking and demolishing the ordinance overruling the Supreme Court verdict on the convicted legislators, is far more than his quips and quotes in his nine-year long political career. Even as a few political commentators and BJP leaders have ascribed political motives to this dramatic move yesterday at the Press Club of India, none of it would take the shine off the fact that he stood up for a good cause and upbraided the government headed by his own party. Mr Gandhi not only showed exemplary courage and conviction, he also goaded both his friends and foes alike not to take him for granted.
On a few occasions earlier, the Congress VP had provided enough hints of impatience with the erratic ways of the party earlier, but he has rarely spoken up against the government which looks ever eager to court controversies and the bad press.
For example, he had favoured the election process for the selection of Youth Congress officer bearers which was not liked by many senior Congress leaders as they felt that the Youth Congress would get weakened by such moves. Yet Rahul Gandhi persisted with that process.
Again, he insisted on going alone in the Bihar polls despite stiff opposition from a section of Congress leaders on the grounds that the Congress party could not do away with the UPA allies and they would have to be accommodated or obliged in some way or the other.
Last week, he surprised everyone at Pune saying that there was no need to depend on the crutched of the NCP in Maharashtra and Congress party workers should work hard to bring the party back to power on its own steam.
Earlier too, Rahul Gandhi had vent out his spleen on a few things about the UPA II government. Once he had endorsed ‘Akash tablet’ plan of the then HRD Minister Kapil Sibal but later he had disassociated himself after the whole scheme ran into rough waters. He had also raised many questions on the Education Policy.
Even on the land acquisition Bill, Rahul Gandhi was not convinced the arguments of a few cabinet ministers and he presented his “agenda” to the UPA Government through Union Minister Jairam Ramesh.
His famous Speech at the Jaipur Plenary Session of AICC at as the Congress Vice- President was against the existing system in the Congress party as well as the Congress led UPA government.
But why this outburst in such a dramatic fashion? Was it an impulsive, spur-of-the-moment action as a few Congress leaders have been telling media persons in their private conversations? The simple answer is NO as a few members of Team Rahul including Milind Deora, Sandeep Dikshit, Priya Dutt and even senior leaders like Anil Shastri and Digvijay Singh had expressed their reservations about the ordinance. They said that some of the grievances of the political parties over the apex court ruling disqualifying convicted members are genuine and need consideration.
Who arm-twisted the UPA government then? Insiders reveal that a clique of senior Ministers, not particularly sensitive to public opinion, had succeeded in forcing the government in order to protect RJD’s lalu Prasad and Congress RS MP Rashid Masood.
With his hard-hitting critique, Rahul Gandhi perhaps made a loud and clear statement about himself and the Congress. A few commentators in national dailies have gone to the extent of saying that his statement amounted to disowning the Prime Minister. The fact is that Rahul’s primary target seem to have been the group of Congress leaders calling the shots in the government and landing it in one embarrassment after another. Through this, he wanted to tell them that there was a limit to nonsense and he was not prepared to be bullied or taken for granted any more.
It would be interesting to watch the response of the government that may unfold gradually, revealing the changing equations in the party and the government. The Congress vice-president has not impressed with his political or communication skills so far. He has been happy playing the backroom boy and avoiding the media glare, but he is definitely living up to his reputation as the outsider in politics. The more he speaks his mind, the better it will be for his public image.
Looking from another prism, Rahul Gandhi appears to have hit RJD Chief the hardest. The former Bihar Chief Minister may have escaped in many of the cases against him in the Rs 950 crore fodder scam, but this time the stakes were higher. If a Jharkhand court is to find him guilty in its verdict on 30 September, he stands to lose out on his chance to go back to Parliament next year. Lalu holds one of the three seats the party has in the Lok Sabha and the party’s hold over the state has steadily slipped over the years.
Rahul Gandhi also understand that it was some of the Congress leaders who mortgaged Congress party in Bihar in Lalu’s hands since 1990 and Lalu’s political demise would give the Congress party to resurrect itself in Bihar in the coming days.
Moreover, Law Minister Kapil Sibal is being seen as the Bihar Chief Minister’s biggest ally in the cabinet having been elected to the Rajya Sabha from Bihar in 1998. Lalu also happens to be in party president Sonia Gandhi‘s good books, having defended her during the controversy over her foreign origins,.
No wonder then that, the UPA has, in the past, pulled out all stops to save Lalu in the past, even dissolving the Bihar Assembly in 2005 to save the RJD government.. But the Congress Vice President doesn’t have any such association with Lalu and, if anything, had a bad experience during the 2009 polls when the party was allowed by Lalu to contest only four seats in the state.
While some political observers see it as enforcing his authority against ministers like Sibal, others see it as the biggest overture Rahul Gandhi could be making towards JD(U) chief Nitish Kumar ahead of the 2014 polls. But the outburst could also be cold mathematics to ensure the Congress isn’t decimated in the upcoming state elections.
According to an India Today report, Team Rahul doesn’t have the highest opinion of ministers like Sibal and Salman Khurshid, who he believes don’t have mass support, but continue to enjoy his mother’s confidence. So the decision to go against them may not have been as hard as it would seem. But by calling the ordinance to save convicted MPs a “complete nonsense”, which “should be torn up and thrown away”, Congress Vice President Rahul Gandhi has declared that the wisdom of his own government should not be trusted by the people. In effect, he has passed a no confidence motion against Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and his entire Cabinet for approving a legislation to strike down the Supreme Court’s verdict.
Moreover, by slamming the ordinance dramatically and publicly, Rahul Gandhi nullified Manmohan Singh’s little remaining authority to almost zero and reduced him to a lame duck PM. Set to go down in history as a man who was bent on ensuring peace with Pakistan and stitching together a civil nuclear deal with US, the Prime Minister must have been flabbergasted to hear, that the person under whom he was most willing to serve after the 2014 elections has just said that his decision taken at the cabinet was ‘nonsense’ and worthy of being ‘torn up and thrown away’.
Given he has already gone down in history as the only PM after Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru to have served for two consecutive terms, it could be time for him to bow out with certain grace, if any. But for a man who for long was said to be in office, not in power, Rahul Gandhi’s barbs would mean that he couldn’t even be in office, without severely compromising with self respect and dignity.
The implications of the Congress Vice President’s statement are particularly grave because it is also loaded against the senior minister like finance minister P Chidambaram, home minister Sushil Kumar Shinde and Law Minister Kapil Sibal, who have strongly been defending the ordinance. Does that mean a fresh round of tussle between the old guard and new guard has started? That would be clear when Rahul Gandhi delivers another verdict.
As of today, Rahul Gandhi suddenly appears to have evolved as a mature politician who has started understanding the nuances of politics and politicking and wants to create his own place through his own style and stamp of authority.
His critics would say, as Arun Jaitley said, it a desperate damage control exercise and a belated realization of what the Congress leader is now terming ‘nonsense.’ The innuendo there is this was a stage managed exercise to hijack the credit of stopping the promulgation of an ordinance that was against prevailing public mood. Or is it the rise of a new young Turk in Rahul Gandhi.?
Apparently, team Rahul has been working on feedback from various quarters on the prevailing public mood in the country and he is also aware that for starting a fresh inning, he would have to consciously disconnect himself from the omissions and commissions of the Manmohan Singh era. He would have to re-connect with the people at grass-root level and present himself “as a credible alternative with lofty ideas and without any taint of corruption” whatsoever.
That is why his team has been working on those areas and issues which may look diametrically opposite to what the present Congress dispensation is. That’s the reason why he has remained an enigma to many congress leaders as well. However, there is no doubt that he is acutely aware of the public mood and he is consciously working on plugging those loop-holes which may bring him at the centre stage on the coming days.
(Posted on September 28, 2013 @ 8.35pm)
(Ajay N Jha is a veteran journalist from both Print and Electronic media. He is the President and CEO of WICS Global Communications. His email id is Ajay N Jha <ajayjha30@gmail.com> )
The views expressed on the website are those of the Columnists/ Authors/Journalists / Correspondents and do not necessarily reflect the views of ENARADA.
