A son rise in Kabul

For Rahul Gandhi, the Afghanistan visit was a strategic move, although from all accounts he tended to stay in the background. The prime minister’s visit had international ramifications, given America’s involvement in that war-torn country; given Afghanistan’s old links with Russia; and given its contiguity with Pakistan. Apart from this, India has a big stake in Afghanistan’s reconstruction. It is an Islamic country with which India has had very close relations in the past. It was Indira Gandhi — Rahul’s grandmother — who was the last Indian PM to have visited Afghanistan 29 years ago.

Rahul Gandhi has hardly been seen during the Budget session of Parliament. All through his first year as MP, he kept a low profile and although he did speak in the Lok Sabha once, he concentrated essentially on his constituency, Amethi. At one level, this low-key approach — and the fact that Sonia Gandhi did not impose her son on the party as soon as he entered Parliament — have gone down well with people. There was a great deal of hype before the 2004 Lok Sabha elections that he was being groomed for the top job. But the Congress, which has a tendency to look for a knight in shining armour to lead it to victory so that the party rank and file do not have to work hard, had become restive over the MP from Amethi remaining in the background instead of leading from the front.

Today, there is great deal of speculation about the role he is tipped to play in the party’s organisation. Rahul Gandhi, who is cast in the mould of his reticent father, seems to be taking the Rajiv Gandhi route into politics. Although the prime minister had reportedly invited him to join the government as a minister in the PMO, Rahul Gandhi is expected to come into the organisation instead and could be made an AICC general secretary next month. There has been some talk that he would be entrusted with the task of looking after frontal organisations. This would give him some autonomy of functioning because — unlike a general secretary in charge of states, which sometimes involves turf wars particularly if the chief minister is at loggerheads with the PCC chief — someone in charge of the party’s frontal organisations would have the opportunity to galvanise younger workers. The party’s frontal organisations are in fact in poor shape. While the Youth Congress and the NSUI appear to be without direction, the Mahila Congress seems incapable of going beyond organising conferences on 33 per cent reservation for women!

The challenge before Rahul Gandhi, as indeed before his mother, will be to energise the party. The Congress faces elections in four states next year — West Bengal, Kerala, Tamil Nadu and Assam. It is unlikely that any of these verdicts will do anything for its morale. That’s not all. The mother of all battles is yet to come: Uttar Pradesh, 2007. Today, the Congress is in a pathetic state in the state, having polled only a few hundred votes in many constituencies and relegated to the third or the fourth positions in most.

The party had announced a road show in UP in September-October, with Rahul Gandhi as its star. But road shows work only if the party already enjoys some goodwill among the people which becomes visible during the programme, and there are credible cadres to turn the public enthusiasm so generated into votes.

The Congress, then, has a long way to go. The party has first to decide the vote base it is going to target, the issues it is going to raise, and the tools it will use to mobilise people. Rahul Gandhi cannot be a magician and deliver victory overnight. The party has to knuckle down to some hard work, and prepare itself for the long haul. But one thing is clear. After Afghanistan, the Congress is once again looking at him with renewed expectations.