The rise and surprise of Rahul Gandhi
Times of India
NEW DELHI, May 17: Verdict 2009 has also been a decisive judgement on the 38-year-old Rahul Gandhi as a campaigner, political tactician and as the Ordained One who would be king. And the judgement is overwhelmingly in his favour.
Somewhere in the course of the campaign, he changed from an apprentice politician to a tactician, shunning and wooing allies with the ease of a natural. He gambled on Congress going it alone in Uttar Pradesh, and it paid off handsomely. He complimented Nitish Kumar, Chandrababu Naidu and the Left, leaving party leaders confused and allies fuming.
Rahul was setting the political agenda on his terms. He could be king right away. But he has chosen not to. Instead of basking in the glory in Delhi, he reached Sultanpur in UP with sister Priyanka to thank his voters. Surely, the man is different.
His focus has been UP, which he knows is key for Congress to regain its old glory. Expect him to possibly change the leadership by bringing in someone younger. And that man, many say, could be Jitin Prasada.
Jitin is just one of his picks. Rahul made it plain in this election that it was time to blood the young — identified Youth Congress chief Ashok Tanwar for Sirsa (Haryana), Bhanwar Jitendra Singh for Alwar, Ravneet Bittu in Punjab and Meenakshi Natarajan in Mandsaur.
Midway through the high-voltage campaigning came a patronizing snub from BJP chief Rajnath Singh when he refused to react to a barb from Rahul Gandhi: "I don't respond to his comments." It came on the back of a dismissive description from Narendra Modi who compared Rahul to an aquarium fish.
Inside a month, on a hot sunny Saturday, the saffron brass was left licking its wounds as everything with a stamp of the Gandhi family scion — strategy and candidates — came up trumps, leaving a virtual carnage in the BJP camp.
There may have been slips like the olive branch to "likeminded" AIADMK which, in hindsight, could have been the disaster that BJP invited upon itself in 2004 polls with a swap of allies in Tamil Nadu. Except that while it showed a certain political immaturity of a young leader, there were weathered warlords in AICC to counsel him.
Where insiders feel he showed impeccable leadership is the clarity he provided on two vital issues which could have clouded the party campaign. One, he unambiguously kept the issue of prime ministership out of the pale of speculation, despite the clamour for taking the baton.
Two, he appeared to have kept the best advice and stuck to the script with rare focus. For a man to have clocked 125 meetings, covering 87,000km, Rahul also proved a tireless campaigner. And it can be said with some evidence that he struck a chord with the youth across the country. The show may only have begun, feel partymen. As he is expected to continue with his campaign to reinvent the party organization through election and active membership, many argue that for once, being in government may not be a negative for the party.