The principal opposition party and its anointed head, Rahul Gandhi, can have no one else to blame if the BJP dismisses the ongoing election for the Congress president as a classic case of dynastic rule. For the past 13 years that Rahul Gandhi has been in active politics, there has been little in his conduct or pronouncements to indicate a coherent worldview or strategy for the political revival of the Congress. Except for a sudden and welcome enthusiasm that he has shown of late in the Gujarat Assembly elections, the kindest term for Rahul Gandhi’s attitude towards his parliamentary and organisational obligations so far is ‘amateurish’. A more contemptuous description favoured by members of the BJP is ‘frivolous’ and ‘caricaturish’. They can be hardly faulted given his routine disappearance from important elections and trips abroad when Parliament is in session.

In 2004 when he was first elected as MP, Gandhi was 34 and Narendra Modi had been chief minister for only two years. Modi was yet to emerge as a larger-than-life persona who, in the ten years of Congress rule, came to symbolise the ‘Gujarat Model’ of development. Gandhi felt either disinclined or simply lacked the wherewithal to politically challenge the appropriation of a model that has been in the making since Morarji Desai and Jivraj Mehta back-channelled the resources of Bombay state into what is now known as Gujarat. It took years of work and talent on his part for Modi to metamorphose from being Hindu Hriday Samrat into the maker of the Gujarat Model which launched him as an alternative to the corruption-ridden and policy paralysis-struck Congress in 2014. It was intellectually lazy and politically suicidal to not counter the appeal of a supremely efficient laissez faire approach (with a healthy dose of Hindutva) and strong leadership symbolised by Modi. While it would be erroneous to hold Gandhi entirely responsible for the structural depletion of the Congress — the party has slipped to third or worse position in ten States and is losing its grip in 320 Lok Sabha seats — he cannot escape blame for not energising the party structure.

It is still not too late to do so. He has managed to re-energise the party in Gujarat where opinion polls show the Congress putting up more than a token fight. More significantly, Gandhi’s support for better prices for farmers’ crops, supplementing State efforts in education and healthcare, and a clear line against “suit-boot ki sarkar” indicates that he is for welfarism and against a less dirigiste growth path. If he is carrying forward the ‘Garibi hatao’and distributive justice ideology of Indira and Sonia Gandhi respectively, it is better that it is enunciated clearly. In a healthy democracy, the leader of the Opposition is expected to introduce ideas, idioms and ideals in the political discourse. He or she also has to act as a counterweight to the Government, ensuring that alternative views find their due place in policymaking. Gandhi is yet to convince the people he is up to the job.

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