Waiting For Shiva

On September 9, Congress vice-­president Rahul Gandhi rea­ched a significant milestone in the journey that he had started five months earlier with his ard­uous trek to Kedarnath temple in the Himalayan ranges. On that day, he visited Hanumangarhi temple in Ayodhya and emerged with a saffron stole around his neck with Ram emblazoned all over it.

On the same day, doctors told ­Sonia Gandhi that her shoulder needs more time to heal. She had dislocated her shoulder when she fell unconscious ­dur­­i­ng her Varanasi roadshow and had had to undergo two surgeries. She couldn’t visit the Kashi Vishwanath temple and had to cut short her visit to prime minister Narendra Modi’s constituency. She is also scheduled to go to the US soon for her regular medical check-up.

With Sonia out of action for some weeks to come, and Rahul in the middle of a ­hectic ‘Kisan Yatra’ in Uttar Pradesh, it ­appears that the status quo in the Congress leadership will persist longer—perhaps until after the crucial Assembly elections in the state.

Outlook spoke to several Congress leaders and got the sense that Rahul’s much-awaited and talked about elevation as party president may not happen before the UP elections. “That Rahul will take over as president is obvious and imminent. There is no one else who can take that mantle,” says a veteran Congress leader. “It is just a matter of right timing.”

Many party insiders agree the shift of power is already in progress. “Soniaji has almost completely retreated from decision-making,” explains another senior leader. “She has already ceded ground and space to her son. It is deliberately ­being done gradually and quietly since she does not want to make the other senior leaders in the party uncomfortable. When the time comes to coronate Rahul, it will ­appear to be the most natural thing. It is like a coup in progress—a bloodless coup with the blessings of the mother.”

The thinking behind this seems to be that some members of the “old-guard” are still not sure if the party will be able to withstand Sonia’s withdrawal from the top position, and whether Rahul will be able to pick up the reins and keep the party together. They are also concerned about the party delaying organisational polls, which were earlier supposed to be held in September 2015.

“Everything was ready and even the schedule was announced in March 2015,” rues a senior Congress leader. “The election officers, too, were ready. A membership drive was also undertaken. However, at the last minute, Rahul decided that things needed to be changed. Membership rules were changed and the party’s constitution needed to be amended. It has been one year since and nothing has moved.”

A party office-bearer explained that ­Rahul had wanted to change the way elections are held. “He wanted to bring in a corporate kind of culture,” he says. “The ‘members’ became ‘candidates’ and they had to fill a form followed by an int­erview by RG (as Rahul is usually ref­erred to in the party) himself.”

However, the 600 young leaders who were selected through the process are still waiting for a role and become a part of Team RG. Incidentally, the party did not announce the “results” of the interviews, with even the selected candidates not being formally informed. Communications in-charge for the All India Congress Committee (AICC) Randeep Surjewala tells Outlook that Rahul has made up his mind about the team. “The members will be ready as and when he takes over the reins of the party,” says Surjewala.

The Congress has now written to the Central Election Commission seeking time until December 31 this year to hold its organisational polls, mandatory as per law. It has sent a note, explaining why it failed to do so within the time frame. Sources say Sonia’s ill-health was cited as the reason. But a veteran office-bearer says, “There is no chance the polls can be held before year-end. There is no preparation at all.”

The party’s focus is completely on UP and the assembly polls scheduled in other states, including Punjab, Uttarakhand, Manipur and Goa. Congress leaders say Rahul is mainly focusing on UP, and it is being seen as a litmus test for him. As of now, it seems he will be the only Gandhi boot on the ground for some time. Sources in the party say that as of now Priyanka Gandhi did not appear amenable to a big role or campaigning extensively in the state.

“Just as she has done before, she (Priyanka) is likely to focus on family constituencies of Amethi and Rae Bareli,” says the party office-bearer. “She may address conventions of party workers in other parts of the state too in order to energise the local units, but is unlikely to address public rallies there.”

Meanwhile, it is clear that the Congress is testing the waters with Rahul’s 2,500-km “mahayatra”, covering 55 Lok Sabha and 233 Vidhan Sabha constituencies across 39 districts of UP. The yatra, which was flagged off on September 6, is as much about raising issues affecting the farmers as it is about “exposing” the BJP’s Hindutva plank as an “instrument to divide and polarise”.

Believed to be the brainchild of strategist Prashant Kishor, the visit to Hanumangarhi temple in Ayodhya—26 years after his father, the late PM Rajiv Gandhi, went there—is being seen as an attempt to project the softer Hindutva agenda, aimed at a Brahmin-centric campaign. The soft Hindutva approach is seen as a way to regain some of the ground the Congress lost among elite and Brahmin voters for being seen as too pro-minorities.

However, Surjewala, seen to be close to Rahul, denies any “political intent” in the Ayodhya visit and insists it was just to seek blessings. “He had lunch at a dargah the same day. There was nothing rel­igious about it,” he says, explaining why not too much should be read into the ­visit. “He even went to Kedarnath in April. The Gandhis are Shaivites and Rahul is a follower of Lord Shiva. He has said on more than one occasion that Shiva is ‘aadi bhagwan’—the god of beginnings—and everything began from there.”

“Rahul sees religion as a force that binds and unifies, and is separate from his politics,” reiterated the AICC communications in-charge. Incidentally, even in the Rahul versus RSS case, the Congress had tried to stress on the difference between the RSS brand of Hindutva, on the one hand, and real Hinduism, on the other.