Rahul’s Political Thriller
Party leaders feel that what they need most at this juncture is the awe, aura and authority of the Nehru-Gandhi family rather than experience
Rahul Gandhi is working at it as if he were acting out
a political thriller. Everyone is sure one day he must
– and he will – but no one knows when!
Congressmen are concerned that it may be too late by the
time he does; the oppositionwallahs are happy that the
longer he dithers, the better for them. Others are wondering whether he is being timid or canny, or whether he will
seize everything in one go or act out his destined role in
stages. Old Delhi hands are calling up parallels from the
past to refresh each other’s memories. How long did Nehru
hesitate to take over the Congress and how long did Indira
Gandhi or Rajiv, for that matter? None of them rushed
in to sort out the mess in the Congress, the government or the country just like that. They
all bided their time, waiting in the
wings, until they found the
moment opportune or when
they were left with no option
but to seize what in their
times everybody believed
was rightfully theirs. Each
one of them faced a vastly
different situation but one
thing was common: they cogitated, almost agonised
themselves for long, before
taking the plunge into the
larger volcanic political world of their days.
Journalists on the political beat say that the
Congress leaders who have met and urged Rahul in recent
months to take over command of the party and the government have often failed to give satisfactory answers to
his searching questions. He has, for instance, asked them
as to what they think he should do in the current situation
once he is in command. None of them have been able to
give him a post-takeover gameplan. There is talk in some
Congress circles that he has agreed to be the party working president in a sort of dyarchy with his mother. Others
say that he has not and that he fears that a mother-son
duo in command of the largest national party may not go
down very well with the voters at large. There are still others who feel that his taking over as working president alone may not be enough because the real mess is not in
the party organisation but in the government. Such party
leaders feel that what the coalition government needs
most at this juncture is the awe, aura and authority of the
Nehru-Gandhi family rather than experience in running
ministries.
These are men of experience who are saying this. They
say that what is needed at the moment is impulse and not
skill. They feel the performance of the government is not
as poor as its credibility. Even performance
will improve with someone like
Rahul, if he can give it some
credibility. So, what they expect
Rahul to bring to the table is
authority, credibility and
youthfulness. He has all
that in him and more, perhaps, of which his party
men may not be aware. He
can do well enough in the
given circumstances, if he is
just astute and able to
send right impulses
from the top down all the
way to the last bureaucrat. He has already
shown some astuteness, which should
improve with time and practice. He exhibited
enough astuteness, for instance, by refusing to be
drawn into a wrangle with Anna and Ramdev. He must
have seen that however large the two of them may seem,
they are nevertheless mere political apparitions he should
not agree to wrestle with.
Some people from outside his political circles say that
Rahul has little time left to mend the wrongs of the past
three years or to cohere the cantankerous coalition that
goes by the name of UPA-2, and that he should, therefore,
stay outside the government at this stage. As there is little
scope left for setting the rickety economy right, he should
not attempt much in this sphere but should somehow
make the right noises as working president of the party
and wield his authority within the organisation where he
faces hardly any challenges.
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