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Bhupinder Singh Hooda, Dalit, India, Indian National Congress, Mamata Banerjee, Narendra Modi, naveen Patnaik, Nitish Kumar, Politician, politics, Prime minister, Rahul Gandhi, Shivraj Singh Chauhan, Sonia Gandhi, Uttar Pradesh
2012 UP election will be the biggest test for Rahul Gandhi (Photo: The Hindu)
While the Digvijay Singhs, Jayanti Natarajans and Manish Tewaris of the Congress party have started expressing their desire to see Rahul Gandhi as the Prime Minister of the country, Rahul is busy preparing for his next big test of the Uttar Pradesh assembly elections in 2012. Since his début in Indian politics, Rahul has invested so much politically in the state of UP that the upcoming state election is being seen as the make or break point in his political career. The recent Padyatra that Rahul undertook supporting the farmers’ cause against land acquisition is nothing but another effort to revive the Congress in UP. Expect Rahul Gandhi to spend more time in UP till the election next year. But all these efforts by Rahul and Co. may not yield the desired results for the party. There is one reason that still keeps Rahul Gandhi far away from the masses irrespective of how much effort he puts to come close to them and the same factor also stands between Congress and the power in the state. The factor we are talking here is the lack of regional leadership in UP.
Rahul Gandhi has made lots of attempts in recent years to woo the public of UP. In his initial days as a political leader, he was famous for visiting Dalit huts and eating food there. While the distance between the politicians and the public was growing, he wanted to show that he was a new age politician moving closer to the poor and Dalits. His real intention was to attract eye balls. Congress was almost nonexistent in the state and only thing it needed was more public attention. Rahul Gandhi being the next leader from the Neheru-Gandhi clan was able to draw the attention with his frequent visits to UP villages. The recent padyatra is also part of the same strategy with the motive to attract the attention of the voters. But the problem is that the attention doesn’t always convert into votes. Sure, he managed to get positive mileage out of the recent yatra for himself and his party and perhaps will manage more positive attention in the next one year, but the attention will not result in a significant number of votes to bring Congress into power or propel the party to at least the King-maker’s position.
But Why?
Rahul's Image: 'sports shoe wearing politician coming in SUVs from Delhi'
The reason is Rahul is still an outsider for the voters of UP. For a common UP voter, he is still a ‘sports shoe wearing politician drinking mineral water packaged in plastic bottles and coming in SUVs from Delhi’ to gather votes for his party. For the local voter, he is a national leader of Congress who is in the state for ensuring wins for the incompetent and useless local Congress leaders. People don’t vote looking at the national leader. Except the strong party workers and supporters, a common voter always votes considering the local issues and comparing the local leaders of different political parties. National leaders are always a secondary factor for a voter while deciding his vote. At best, the individual votes gets decided depending on the state level leaders of a party. There are a plenty of examples in Indian politics to prove this point. Most of the votes polled for BJP/NDA in Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh or Bihar are because of the charisma of Narendra Modi, Shivraj Singh Chouhan or Nitish Kumar. It is Tarun Gogoi whom the voters of Assam trusted which translated into a Congress victory in Assam. TMC in West Bengal, BJD in Odisha, AIDMK in Tamil Nadu rule because people of the respective states support Mamata Banerjee, Naveen Patnaik and Jayalalitha, all regional satraps. Bhupinder Singh Hooda’s clout is more than that of Sonia Gandhi/Manmohan Singh in the state of Haryana. The Andhra Pradesh was once a Congress stronghold for a regional leader like YSR Reddy. The UP Congress has neither a powerful regional leader nor a vibrant party cadre. Rahul Gandhi comes and goes back to Delhi and all the goodwill he earns through his yatras are lost due to lack of the local leadership. Perhaps that explains why despite a good show in the LS election in 2009, a recent internal poll predicted a disastrous assembly poll result for Congress in UP.
Then what should Rahul Gandhi do?
Political circles believe that Manmohan Singh is just managing the post of Prime Minister till Rahul gandhi is ready to takeover. 2012 election is important for Rahul Gandhi to be ready for the PM post in 2014 or later (of course if the world exists after 2012 
). So he can’t afford to miss this opportunity due to the lack of regional leadership in UP. Then what clould and should he do? Local cadre or a strong leader is not something that can be made overnight. Is it then the end for Rahul Gandhi’s high hopes off the UP elections?
No, there is still a way that may help Rahul’s aspirations. The only way Congress can revive its fortunes in UP is by declaring Rahul Gandhi as the CM candidate. Rahul Gandhi will anyway be very much involved in the decision-making of Congress for the state election, then why not make him the leader under which the party will fight the election? This will not only fill the void at the top of party’s state leadership, can also rejuvenate the dormant congress cadre in the state. Rahul Gandhi will not be considered as a national leader by the voters and his speeches, promises and actions will be taken seriously by the UP public. Rather than being just a flash in the pan, Rahul can have a long-lasting effect on the voters’ mind if Congress clearly declares the ‘PM in waiting’ as the ‘UP CM in waiting’. Using this path, Rahul can also get an opportunity to prove his mettle as a good administrator and able politician and convince the country that he deserves a chance to become the PM. A 5 years experience as the UP CM (if Congress manages to gather majority after the poll) can be included as an achievement in his otherwise a dud political CV. This way he can convince the country that he can be a PM not just because of his surname.
Will Rahul adopt this way?
There is definite risk involved in this path. The risk of failure. Anything sort of clear majority will be seen as a failure of Rahul Gandhi and this time he can be directly blamed for the loss. Even though he heavily influenced the poll strategy in Bihar and Tamil Nadu, he managed to escape the blame for the poor results. Escaping responsibilities has been the keyword in Rahul Gandhi’s lexicon so far and it is rather unexpected that he would be courageous enough to put himself in the direct line of fire in case Congress loses the UP election. The history of Nehru-Gandhi dynasty also shows how the members of the dynasty never take the difficult path to become the PM. While a non-Gandhi politician has to overcome many hurdles and gain experience by assuming several constitutional posts, a Gandhi surname holder is so soft to take the difficult path that he/she is airdropped to hold the post of PM even if without any previous experience of holding a constitutional post. If Rahul Gandhi decides the path his grand mother or father adopted, do not hope he taking the risk of making himself responsible for the UP assembly election outcome. But the young Gandhi must remember that if he can’t make himself ready for a CM post, the country can’t be ready to accept him as the PM of India.
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The above mentioned theory has too many assumption and one of the biggest flaw is to assume Rahul is capable PM or even political material. Second big flawed assumption is to draw comparison between UP politics and other state politics, while lack of local leadership is surely a problem in UP, the major factor is concentrated caste based politics played. The fourth assumption is base premise of this theory of risking Rahul at CM job, the reluctance of Congress and Gandhi family to to expose Rahul to any parliamentary responsibility can be seen of he being evasive from any cabinet post either in UPA-1 or UPA-2. The interaction and non-existent participation of Rahul in parliament is in itself authenticates him being not sincere to govern the country, rather mother-son duo needs the PM’ship as served on platter.
Also to prove the mettle Rahul need not wait to be CM, he is already a Member of Parliament and has Amethi as his karma kshetra, but he being absolved from responsibility of improving Amethi speaks volumes in itself. Hence, argument that Rahul will prove his political or leadership capability is baseless, for he has failed disastrously to even spend money meant for Amethi.
Along with, the gems he spread by talking non sense just adds to his list of exposing his dumber side.
Cong and Sonia will never risk Rahul for CM job for any state, prima facie because Rahul factor works as hope factor cong ground level cadre and a tool to entice voters. The capability is tad different from pretending to be capable. All the antics of Rahul has been seen through and has never received overwhelming success despite media being more desperate then congress to label Rahul as Under Taker of Indian Politics. Infact BJP or BSP has not done anything, Rahul’s antics itself exposes him, recent example being claim of 70 people killed and women raped in UP and during his pada yatra his stud silence against inflation and sticking to script of abusing Maya.
Rahul needs to have capability in first place and then seek platform to expose it, on the contrary many platforms are been offered but either has rejected to prove his mettle (by rejecting cabinet post and also by not participating in parliament and lastly not an iota of improvement in his constituency of Amethi, where he is MP) OR he has failed miserably in states like Bihar, Tamil Nadu (Where he was star campaigner and even co-ordinator for CONG).
Rahul can at the best be used by CONG as antique object, or funny banner in front of CONG, to attract people. But the moment COng plans to sell Rahul as a product, the entire shop of Cong will be sold cuz Cong cant risk to expose failure of Word Gandhi, which is basis of its existence and relevance in India
Thanks Jemin for your feedback. The focus of the post wasn’t to evaluate Rahul Gandhi as a PM material or predicting whether he could be PM one day. The theory I proposed, as the title suggests, was focussed on why the current efforts of Rahul Gandhi to revive Congress in UP may fail and how he can help his party by adopting a particular way. That way can also help him legitimizing his PM aspirations. But obviously he won’t take that path. We agree on that.
Agreed, n hence my point was not to evaluate Rahul – i presented few facts as to why Cong will also be reluctant to try your theory
Following congress politics….it would be a rather bold decision…..but considering rahul gandhi…it would be an impossible decision……as mentioned by jaymin….rahul is d harbinger of hope for congress….any dent to his image will hurt congress more than the UP elections……rather than flashy stuffs dat attract eyeballs rahul has nothing else to prove his credentials as a PM….no economic agenda, no security perspective, not evn a word on d raging corruption…..it is sad but rahul knows he is not gud enuf to be UP CM but definitely gud enuf to be an Indian PM
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