Hair Dye vs Blow Dry
The Haryana and Maharashtra results have brought in an unexpected windfall for the Old Guard within the Congress and carry their own subtext for Team Rahul, for the Haryana tally is being credited directly to Bhupinder Singh Hooda’s account and no credit is given to Rahul Gandhi. In fact if anything, the former Congress president is being blamed for delaying Hooda’s elevation and costing the Congress the election. Interestingly, Rahul only campaigned twice in Haryana, and both times, Bhupinder Hooda did not share the dais with him. There was an unofficial roadmap in place going by the popular perception that BJP would sweep both states, and then Team Rahul would somewhat smugly point out that a change of guard had done no good and make the case of a “return to Rahul”. That move has effectively been stalled, with not just Hooda but other members of the Old Guard such as Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Kamal Nath agreeing that the delay in elevating Hooda cost the Congress the election. So Team Rahul will just have to reboot their data, as on ground experience scores over laptop calculations. Or, to put it in a more colloquial manner: hair dye wins over blow dry.
Checklist of Wrong Choices
A key requirement of a leader is to be able to choose the right team. Here is a quick checklist of Rahul Gandhi’s choices that tells its own tale—from promoting Ajay Maken over Sheila Dikshit; preferring Navjot Sidhu over Captain Amarinder Singh; Ashok Tanwar over Bhupinder Singh Hooda; and K.C. Venugopal over Ahmed Patel. The two instances where he opted for the Old Guard were in Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh and one is not quite sure whether the decision had more to do with promoting Kamal Nath and Ashok Gehlot, or to keep Jyotiraditya Scindia and Sachin Pilot out, for both are seen as the next-best faces for the post of Congress president. In fact it’s not always a case of Old vs Young, for he also managed to antagonise some GenNext leaders with a grassroots presence such as Himanta Biswa Sarma and Jaganmohan Reddy, opting instead for a team of rootless headquarter honchos such as Madhusudan Mistry, Mohan Prakash and Beni Prasad Verma, to name a few.
Congress-AAP tie-up on the cards?
With Subash Chopra’s appointment as the Delhi PCC chief, the road it seems is paved for a tie-up between the Aam Admi Party and the Congress. Unlike his predecessor, Sheila Dikshit, Chopra has always been in favour of a tie-up with the AAP. There was some talk that the Congress was planning to promote BJP import Kirti Azad as its Chief Minister face. And though Azad has been made the campaign committee chief, which is one indication that the Congress intends to cash in on his brand appeal, the party will most likely do a deal with the Aam Admi Party. Incidentally, few rule out the chances of a Kejriwal comeback, especially after the Haryana and Maharashtra results have shown that a strong local leader can take on the Narendra Modi juggernaut. Moreover, the BJP is still to decide on its CM candidate for Delhi. In this era of personality contests this gives an added edge to Kejriwal’s candidature.
What next on Modi’s agenda?
With the Ram Mandir verdict expected next month it seems that Prime Mininister Narendra Modi would have delivered on almost all of BJP’s manifesto promises, beginning with the abrogation of Article 370. What is left is the Uniform Civil Code and that too seems on the anvil in the coming winter session of Parliament. However, sources claim that instead of directly imposing a UCC, the PM is inclined to take a slightly indirect route and go in for the much needed revamp of the Indian Penal Code, which would then also include the UCC.