The Rahul-Raihan Video
This Diwali, Congress leader Rahul Gandhi shared a video with his nephew Raihan Vadra, sparking off speculation on social media. According to the buzz this is being seen as a soft launch of yet another member of the Nehru-Gandhi family into public life. The 24-year-old Raihan is Priyanka Gandhi Vadra’s son and so far he has stayed away from public life, preferring to indulge his passion in photography. He has held several exhibitions in Delhi’s Bikaner House, as well as Mumbai. A graduate of the Doon School, like his grandfather and uncle, Raihan’s classmates remember him as someone who has an avid interest in current affairs, and holding his own in the mock UN debates organised at the school. Recently, he was also seen accompanying his mother when she went to file her nomination as the Congress candidate from Wayanad. The video is an interesting one as it shows Rahul interacting with those who work behind the scenes to make our Diwali happen, with some even working during the festival. So the video showcases both Rahul and Raihan helping workers and even painting the walls at 10 Janpath. Later, Rahul shows Raihan some “diyas” that he had made during a visit to a potter’s house in Uttam Nagar. What has got social media gossiping is the understated but a very strong similarity between the uncle and nephew and hence the speculation as to whether Rahul is grooming his heir apparent. What is also interesting is that this video has come out at the same time as when Priyanka is making her electoral debut.
Akhilesh Yadav’s message to the Congress
Soon after the Haryana results, the Samajwadi Party did not waste time in announcing its candidates to seven of the nine seats that were due for bypolls in Uttar Pradesh. The SP chief Akhilesh Yadav made the announcement on social media without consulting the Congress. This was not in keeping with what the Congress was demanding for it wanted at least four to six of the nine seats. Moreover, the two that were offered to the Congress were in Ghaziabad and Khair, constituencies where the BJP has a strong presence. Hence the Congress had no option but to sit this election out, or else break the I.N.D.I.A bloc and contest against its ally. The usually affable Akhilesh, who has gone out of his way more than once to accommodate the Congress, was reportedly miffed at the fact that the national party did not offer the SP any seats in the Haryana elections. This is the same attitude that the SP had encountered in the Madhya Pradesh Assembly polls as well, but decided to overlook it and team up with the Congress for the Lok Sabha polls. But now it seems as if Akhilesh is setting some boundaries and redrawing some lines in the relationship.
Maharashtra vs Gujarat in the coming polls
It looks as if the state of Gujarat will play an important role in the election narrative of Maharashtra. The Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA comprising Congress, Uddhav Thackeray’s Sena and Sharad Pawar’s NCP) have stoked this narrative that in the last two and a half years, ever since it lost power to the BJP-led Mayayuti alliance, big industrial projects that should have come to Maharashtra have been bagged by Gujarat. Such as the 1.54 lakh crore Foxconn-Vedanta semiconductor project that was inked in September 2022. The dominant theme of this narrative being that a vote for the Mahayuti would be a vote for Gujarat. In fact, the UBT’s feisty Priyanka Chaturvedi recently posted on X that there were two and a half CMs working for Gujarat, and working against the interests of Maharashtra. In her tweet she lists the Gujarat CM Bhupendra Patel, the current Maharashtra CM Eknath Shinde and the Deputy Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis, and states that “when you have two and a half CMs working for Gujarat, the results will be against Maharashtra”. It’s going to be interesting to see how the Gujarat duo, Narendra Modi and Amit Shah counter this without antagonising their Gujarati voter base.