At an interactive session with prominent Bengaluru citizens Rahul Gandhi openly declared that he is willing to become Prime Minister if the Congress became the largest party in 2019.
Narendra Modi criticised Gandhi calling him an ‘immature and naive’ leader. Other critics worry that his declaration threatens the oppositions unity.
ThePrint asks: Can Rahul Gandhi finally take on Modi or has he waited too long?
‘Dynast’ Rahul thinks he has the divine right to be PM
Kanchan Gupta
Political commentator
First, if you look at it in the immediate context, to make such a statement at the fag-end of the Karnataka elections makes little sense. It plays into Narendra Modi’s hand. Like all campaigns, Modi has turned the election into a contest between him and other national leaders. If you look at it purely in terms of popularity ratings Gandhi is nowhere near Modi. In terms of strategy, Rahul Gandhi is at a loss if the statement was intended to give his party a boost in the Karnataka campaign.
Second, the Congress doesn’t have any chance to win majority on its own in 2019. Say for arguments sake they do, then it has to be a coalition of parties that can stake a claim to form the government. In that coalition, you will have contending claimants for the top job.
I can’t imagine Mamata Banerjee, or Mayawati or Chandrababu Naidu ceding political space to Rahul Gandhi. By jumping the gun, Gandhi has made the Congress an iffy proposition for the other parties.
Third, supposing the Congress loses in Karnataka, it will be the 22nd state they’ll lose. To declare himself as the putative prime minister shows he hasn’t factored in the possibility of a defeat. A loser claiming Prime Ministership is bad politics.
Fourth, Gandhi’s own dismal track record as a parliamentarian. He barely has 40 per cent attendance, zero participation in debates, has asked no questions, has moved no motion in the house, and does not participate in parliamentary committees. If you look at his constituency, he makes few forays and when he does, ends up making a fool of himself.
On the ground level his legitimacy is very low. The gravitas, experience and maturity that is required of any prime ministerial candidate is missing.
One can conclude, it is not the conviction that he can be a good PM that drove Rahul Gandhi to state his claim. It is a sense of entitlement that as a dynast he has the divine right to be the prime minister.
Rahul Gandhi cannot take on Modi. He needs to work harder
Sanjay Kumar
Director, the Centre for the Study of Developing Societies (CSDS)
Rahul Gandhi is 47-years-old, has been in politics for only 14 years (contested his first Lok Sabha election in 2004), and successfully contested three Lok Sabha elections 2004, 2009 and 2014. Is this too long a career in politics? Not really, leaders spend decades in politics before being able to make a difference.
But at the same time, I am willing to agree that by now Rahul Gandhi has a decent experience in politics, but by no standard one that is long. So I do not agree that Rahul Gandhi waited too long before finally publicly stating that he is willing to be the Prime Minister of India if the Congress wins the 2019 Lok Sabha elections.
The BJP leaders are bound to make a mockery of his statement— rightly so, as the Congress has only 48 members in the Parliament at present,and is state government in only three states without any signs of a revival in recent years. The possibility of the Congress coming to power after the 2019 Lok Sabha elections is impossible. And one should read Rahul Gandhi’s statement in the light of his throwing his hat in the ring in case of a hung Lok Sabha in 2019.
I think Rahul Gandhi making this statement is a new style of asserting his leadership within the Congress party, sending out a message loud and clear to the leaders of various other regional parties that he will be in the race for the top position post 2019 in case of a hung Lok Sabha. The statement suggests that finally he is not afraid of taking on Modi. Overall, Rahul Gandhi is trying to dispel the notion that his heart in not in politics— he wants to convey very clearly that he is and will continue to be in politics and aspires for the top political position in the country.
But at the same time, I do agree that only by saying so Rahul Gandhi cannot take on Modi. He needs to work harder than he is currently, form coalitions, allow local level leaders to emerge at the state and regional levels. The Congress and Rahul Gandhi alone cannot take on Modi, at least in 2019.
Modi’s politics is uncouth, Rahul’s maintains decorum
Sanjay Nirupam
President, Mumbai Congress
Yes, Rahul should become and will become the Prime Minister of India in 2019. He is a dynamic and visionary leader who believes in the cultural ethos of India. He is spreading the politics of love in response to the politics of hatred being spread by the BJP.
His comment in the session was that if the Congress gets the majority vote, he will be the PM. Compared to Narendra Modi, Rahul Gandhi is a thousand times better. Unlike Modi’s uncivilised and uncouth politics, Gandhi believes in maintaining a political decorum. The way Modi is lowering himself for the BJP’s campaign in Karnataka is deplorable. Rahul Gandhi would never do that.
Modi may comment on Rahul Gandhi’s mother. Rahul Gandhi will never do the same. He wants to restore civilised politics in India. He believes constructive criticism, not vitriolic personal attacks.
The marginalised sections of society are feeling threatened because of Narendra Modi and his style of politics. Rahul Gandhi has always been pro-Dalit, pro-tribals, pro-labour and pro-poor. He wants to work for every community in India. Modi only believes in serving a certain section of the corporates. While Gandhi has always made it a point to fight for the oppressed sections of society and that is what makes him an able candidate for becoming the prime minister.
Modi had spouted a thousand lies to become the PM. Rahul Gandhi however, only makes claims that he knows he can fulfil.
The Modi regime has been a nightmare for India. Only when Rahul Gandhi becomes the PM will this nightmare end. Then people will people feel safe and secure.
Rahul Gandhi took Congress from position of strength to ICU
Dr Syed Zafar Islam
National spokesperson, BJP
Rahul Gandhi positioning himself as the next Prime Minister is a tall order.
He doesn’t enjoy the confidence of his own lieutenants, or senior Congress leaders, or even his karyakartas. This is evident from Salman Khurshid’s candid comments in an interview where he stated that the Congress requires the stewardship of Sonia Gandhi. It is her expertise and experience that can nourish the Congress. A person who cannot inspire loyalty within his own cadre, can do little to run a country as complex and diverse as India.
Rahul Gandhi is responsible for taking the Congress from a position of strength to the ICU. He has barely managed to make a dent electorally. None of the elections conducted under his leadership have resulted in a victory for the Congress. It is a grave comment on his capability as a leader. Moreover, there is resentment in the ranks of the Congress.
More importantly, as far as his experience is concerned, Rahul Gandhi doesn’t understand how the Indian democracy works. When people have needed him to be around, he has been absconding for vacations.
The present Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, works 24×7. That concept seems alien to Rahul Gandhi. Political expectations in India are very different from that of Europe. That is something Rahul Gandhi must understand.
Rahul Gandhi’s political aspirations depend on how fast he learns from Congress’s past mistakes
Aarthi Ramachandran
Author of Decoding Rahul Gandhi
Rahul Gandhi’s declaration that he could be India’s prime minister if the Congress emerges as the biggest party after the 2019 elections positions him as the main contender against Narendra Modi. Although this is not first time he has spoken about becoming the PM, Gandhi’s statement is important since it comes in the course of a keenly-fought election in Karnataka that is being seen as a ‘mini 2019’.
To the extent that it conveys to the party workers and potential allies that he’s no longer in politics as an apprentice or a learner, he sees the goal of political work as power, the statement is useful. Not surprisingly, it hit home with the Bharatiya Janata Party. Modi chose to characterise Gandhi’s remark as a sign of his ‘arrogance’ in the first election rally he addressed Wednesday morning in Karnataka.
The statement of intent apart, can Gandhi take on Modi in 2019? In terms of political styles and personalities, Modi and Gandhi couldn’t be more different. Modi is earthy, combative and instinctive as a politician. Gandhi is still developing a persona that appears to have something of a laid back, wry touch to it. It may not always work in an election rally but it does seem to have takers on social media.
If Gandhi manages to keep the spotlight away from a high-voltage personality contest between Modi and himself and focuses the campaign sharply on issues surrounding the poor performance of the Modi government, he has a chance of cashing in on the anti-incumbency sentiment. In short, he needs to find a way to emerge as an alternative to Modi without making Modi the centrepiece of the 2019 campaign. Whether he can do it would depend on how fast he learns from the Congress’s mistakes of the recent past.
Rahul Gandhi deserves credit for his efforts to reinvent himself
Sandip Ghose
Political Commentator
It will be dishonest to deny that Rahul Gandhi has substantially improved his profile and is finally a politician to reckon with in his own right. No doubt he has been helped by a favourable ecosystem and the Congress-nurtured media, who have been waiting for long to see him come of age. However, certainly he could not have reinvented himself without his own efforts and for that he deserves credit.
A major correction he has made since 2014, when a 65-year-old Narendra Modi was a bigger hit with young first time voters than then 42-something Rahul Gandhi, is to regain some of his lost youthfulness. He is now definitely more comfortable in his own skin– or shall we say jeans. Obviously, the ‘angry (not so) young man’ image donned by him is a conscious decision and, most probably, on the advise of expert make-over consultants. A coat of impatience and calibrated brashness has been added.
Most significantly, he tries hard to give the impression of being an honest, no-nonsense straight talker. It is in the last element, where he seems to have a problem because he lacks substantive content– other than the coaching notes of his various mentors that he has tried to absorb over time. Simply taking indignant potshots at Modi, on the flogged-till-death issue of demonetisation and Nirav Modi, can take him up to a point but beyond that, he will need a credible differentiation.
While all this might increase his TRP, whether it will covert into votes and Lok Sabha seats is the big question. For that Karnataka would be his real baptism by fire in the run up to 2019. In Gujarat, to a large extent, he rode on the anti-incumbency of the BJP government, who were finally bailed out by Modi. In Karnataka, can he do a Modi to neutralise the negative baggage of Siddaramaiah and retain the state for the Congress? Neither he nor the Congress are leaving any stone unturned to achieve that. If he succeeds, then Rahul Gandhi 2.0 would have really arrived and his prospective allies will start taking him seriously.
If Rahul Gandhi says he’s ready to be PM, Indians must say ‘show me’
Rama Lakshmi
Editor, Opinion, ThePrint
Free market economists call the UPA era ‘the lost decade’. I think that phrase is better applicable to Rahul Gandhi’s leadership journey. He lost too much time between 2004 to 2014 in delaying, dithering and ducking responsibility– trapped in Shakespeare’s ‘to be or not to be’ and T.S. Eliot’s ‘do I dare, disturb the universe?’
He lost precious political capital that a young leader desperately needs in their early years. Look at the brand names he accrued along the way: ‘Pappu’, heir non-apparent, the reluctant prince, and the missing prince.
He spent years travelling India, a self-indulgent enterprise that the media called Rahul Gandhi’s ‘Discovery of India’ tour. He showed up at far-flung, poor villages in his whirring helicopter and with fortress-like security for scripted chats with weavers, potters, self-help group women and Dalit families.
A silver-spoon dynast, he was trying hard to break out of his cocoon and collect some frequent-traveller dust.
“There are two parts of India. One part is the urban India that is growing very fast,” he told reporters. “The other is the forgotten part of India. As a politician, my responsibility is to come and listen to them.”
His learning tour cost India dear. While he was connecting with the forgotten kalavatis, an ambitious Narendra Modi was blogging, tweeting and deploying an American PR firm to flood our inboxes with the narrative of a vibrant ‘Gujarat model’. Modi spent those years speaking, not listening.
On one hand, Rahul Gandhi said no to former PM Manmohan Singh’s pleas to join the cabinet, insisting he is above power-seeking. On the other, he undermined and tore up Singh’s ordinance in an arrogant display of power.
Every few months, we hear the spin that Rahul Gandhi has finally matured as a leader. But Modi’s opponent must be a strong, charismatic and active leader.
If Rahul has finally said he is ready now, Indians may just say “show me”.
Compiled by Deeksha Bhardwaj, journalist at ThePrint.