Congress worries as Rahul plays ducks and drakes

  These are testing times for Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi.  Tipped to step into Sonia Gandhi’s shoes, he is under scrutiny within the Congress. Aware of a degree of unease relating to his induction, Rahul is making efforts to sound promising to the Congress rank and file. His threat to “expose” Prime Minister Narendra Modi over alleged wrong-doings relating to demonetisation and efforts to reach out to non-NDA leaders such as calling on ailing DMK chief M Karunanidhi were pointers towards that direction. Though at a nascent stage, the possibility of an electoral tie-up between the Congress and the Samajwadi Party in Uttar Pradesh is gaining currency solely because of Rahul’s personal equation with Akhilesh Yadav. Congress panels,  set up to name party nominees for Assembly polls in Goa, Punjab, Uttarakhand and Uttar Pradesh, have members such as Rajiv Satav, Meekanshi Natrajan and MC Venugopal who are closely associated with team Rahul. However, these positive images get somewhat blurred once Congressmen start giving a harder look at Rahul’s performance.  Party leaders at all levels of hierarchy are baffled the way Rahul built up the campaign against Modi, promising a "political earthquake" and bursting some kind of deadly balloon. It was expected that once the winter session of Parliament ends, Rahul would take the campaign to the “people’s court.”  Instead, a picture of him smiling and hearing an attentive Modi was circulated with the Prime Minister telling him, “Milte rahiye ga” (let’s keep meeting). Kejriwal was quick to allege, as is his spit-and-scoot style, a quid pro quo between Rahul and the ruling establishment.  Within the party, a section of Congressmen point an accusing finger at Jyotiraditya Scindia, party whip in the Lok Sabha who reportedly arranged a meeting between the Rahul-led Congress delegation and the Prime Minister.  Assuming that Scindia erred in tendering such advice, was it not Rahul Gandhi who went ahead with it? Old-timers recall a similar incident in 2001 when Sonia Gandhi was AICC chief and the Atal Behari Vajpayee-led NDA Government was facing the Tehelka expose heat. The Congress had done a massive mobilisation, collecting 6.25 crore signatures on a petition to the President seeking an inquiry by a Joint Parliamentary Committee into the alleged defence scams. Sonia, accompanied by all PCC presidents, was set to hand over the signatures to the President and seek action. Then 'something' happened and Sonia left for the US on a five-day visit, replacing the then Union Health Minster CP Thakur as the official leader of the United Nations AIDS conference delegation. Instead of seeking a fresh date from President KR Narayanan for submission of the signatures, she gave instructions to a lowly AICC functionary to take the truckloads of the bundles of signatures to Rashtrapati Bhavan. In whispers, it was said that Brajesh Mishra, NSA and Principal Secretary to the Prime Minister, and K Natwar Singh and SK Singh had played a crucial role in a behind-the-scene 'settlement.' Senior party leaders feel given Rahul’s current standing within and outside the Congress, any sign of a quid pro quo or softening of stand vis-à-vis the Modi Government would hurt him most. He faces a serious credibility and image challenge that he himself needs to work upon. Both time and patience is in short supply for him.

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