A ‘prince’ promising yuva raj

While leaving,Rahul asked Chaube to follow him,but he fell behind as the SPG tried to control the surging crowd. “Jin logon ko koi nahin puchhata,Rahul puchhate hain (Rahul cares about those who are ignored by others),” a thrilled Chaube told The Indian Express on phone from Betiah.

Rahul had not uttered the word ‘caste’ even once during his whirlwind tour of a state where politics is summed up in combinations of alphabets like M-Y (Muslim-Yadav) or EBC (extremely backward castes). Nor was he questioned during any of his interactive sessions on the controversial PCC list including caste names of office-bearers. Nevertheless,his Bihar tour has created a buzz among the youth,claim Indian Youth Congress (IYC) leaders accompanying him.

Dismissed as a bachcha by BJP leader Rajnath Singh 14 months ago,the young scion of the Nehru-Gandhi family is giving jitters to the Opposition camps,as was evident from Shiv Sena supremo Bal Thackeray’s angry reaction to his “Mumbai for all” remarks. While his night halts at Dalits’ houses and interaction with students were earlier dismissed as political stunts,the same appear to have caught the fancy of India’s youth. Over five million youth have become members of the IYC in a dozen states where membership drive was launched.

While Rahul was said to have thought of different ways to reach out to youth even before he contested the parliamentary elections in 2004,he took the first step in this direction in March 2004 when he went on a four-day tour to Orissa. He spent four hours interacting with tribal children at a school in Ganjam district. His next stop was Uttarakhand a few weeks later where he had interactive sessions with students in both Garhwal and Kumaon regions. Since then he has been meeting students,technocrats and other professionals to try to convince them to join politics. “The idea is to bring young people from all walks of life into politics,” said an IYC leader.

For his interactions,Rahul is said to have set certain broad principles. While he makes conscious efforts not to cast aspersions on Opposition leaders during his interactions with students,he does sometimes divert from it while talking about development issues. He explains his idea of internal democracy and organisational elections in the Youth Congress and NSUI as part of his larger objective to give “voice” to the youth and bring them into politics. In many interactive sessions,he has made it a point to ask the audience to count leaders who are below 35 years old. At Bodhgaya,for instance,he asked a group of SC/ST students to name three Dalit leaders below 35 years. As they couldn’t answer,he said,“That is why I am here. I want to create leaders from every community and region.”

At an interactive session with professionals in Ahmedabad last year,a girl pointed out that there was a perception about politics being “dirty”. Rahul replied,“You won’t be able to change that without entering politics.”

“He has set out to change the image of politician and politics,which is perceived to be ‘dirty’. When he is trying to cleanse the political system to attract youngsters into it,he cannot talk about ‘dirty’ aspects like caste and religion. His objective is to motivate youngsters to join politics and contribute in nation building process,” said a leader close to Rahul.

Both the BJP and the Left have attributed youth’s attraction to Rahul to his association with Nehru-Gandhi family. “People have to think whether they want yuvraj (crown prince) or yuva raj (rule of youth). There is hype about Rahul Gandhi’s visits to colleges and universities because he is the son of Sonia and Rajiv Gandhi. What he is doing today,we had done three years back and got 35 lakh youngsters to join us. As for the response of students to his visits,this happens when any leader comes there,” said Amit Thakkar,president of Bhartiya Janata Yuva Morcha. Asked who in the BJP could match Rahul in terms of popularity among youth,he said,“There are many of them. But you see only Rahul because he is the son of Sonia Gandhi. In fact,every time a new member of the family entered politics,there was an attempt to project him as youth leader. Indira Gandhi did it in the name of taking on the Syndicate in the Congress. Then you had Sanjay Brigade. Rajiv Gandhi was projected as youth leader. As Sonia Gandhi was not so young,it was not done in her case. But now it is being done for Rahul.”

SFI president P K Biju also attributed Rahul’s popularity to his family. “Crowd comes to see him out of curiosity because he comes from Nehru-Gandhi family. Even our people attend his meetings when he comes to college campuses. But they don’t come for his politics.” Asked to name a young leader in the CPM who could be compared with Rahul,Biju said,“Oh,we have so many of them. But we come from the paddy fields and he comes from the great Indian family. I am also against his corporate style of politics like interviewing Youth Congress leaders. Our cadres come up through mass struggle and not through interviews.”