Rahul’s ‘Rafale’ campaign a non-starter in Telangana

Telangana Congress leaders want more focus on the TRS government’s ‘failures’ than on the Rafale deal.

 

Congress president Rahul Gandhi’s vigorous campaign against the Rafale fighter jet deal is unlikely to fetch votes for his party in the coming Assembly elections to five states. This is the view of Telangana Congress leaders who have sent a request to the Congress president, urging him not to talk much about the Rafale deal, and instead focus on the failures of the local TRS government.

Rahul Gandhi has been talking about the Rafale deal targeting Prime Minister Narendra Modi so as to drive home a point that this was a bigger scam than the Bofors gun deal that jeopardised his father Rajiv Gandhi’s electoral prospects three decades ago. Rahul Gandhi has been training his guns on the Rafale deal, be it at a party meeting or a media conference or a public rally for the last few months.

However, this is not going to serve any purpose, according to an informal survey done by Telangana Congress Committee’s election campaign cell early this month. When the cell members enquired with party leaders and cadre about the efficacy of Rahul Gandhi’s Rafale campaign, they replied that it was proving to be useless as the pubic was not impressed with his arguments.

A majority of Congress leaders are of the opinion that Rahul Gandhi has been devoting 90% of his speech on the alleged corruption in the Rafale deal and completely ignoring the corruption of the K. Chandrasekhar Rao (KCR) led TRS government in Telangana. Moreover, the common people are disinterested in the Rafale deal and are unable to relate to Rahul Gandhi’s charges against Anil Ambani led companies.

The campaign committee led by senior Congress MLA Mallu Bhatti Vikramarka has been gathering points to be raised during the electioneering in Telangana. The panel has prepared a list of points to be included in the speeches of Rahul Gandhi who is expected to address at least 10 major rallies in the state between 20 October and 5 December. Here, polling will be held on 7 December.

Though a series of leaders, including some star campaigners, will be addressing rallies and meetings, the speeches of Rahul Gandhi are important to the party, as the public would construe them as the main focus of the party. Campaign committee members are dismayed that a lot of resources, time and energies are being wasted on Rahul Gandhi’s meetings as he focuses only on the Rafale deal.

This seems to be the case with Congress units in other states, too, but none of the leaders close to Rahul Gandhi is able to convey the point to him.

According to a senior leader in the AICC, some party leaders in Madhya Pradesh recently sent a message to the party president that he better avoid the Rafale deal and just talk about the “failures” of Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan. However, Rahul Gandhi simply ignored the plea and stuck to the Rafale deal.

Another attempt is being made by Telangana Congress leaders that Rahul Gandhi should drop or minimise talk of the Rafale deal in his speeches in the state in the next six weeks. For this, they have conducted a mini-survey on the voters on the issues they would like to hear about from the party during the electioneering, a campaign committee member told this newspaper.

“There are several burning issues against the KCR government like its failure to fill up one lakh jobs as the Chief Minister promised in 2014 and the corruption in several major irrigation projects or failure to supply drinking water to every household under Mission Bhagiratha etc. We need to highlight the failures of the KCR government, but talking about Rafale deal will not help us,” said the member on the condition of anonymity.