Take the instance of Rahul giving a call for "democratisation" of the party, of ending the culture of "nominations" and replacing it with elections. Of course, there is a certain irony in Rahul asking for this, given that as the second most important person in the party, it could be reasonably expected that he would be able to implement such a suggestion. But what is more interesting is the response to this. A party general secretary, part of the inner circle, responded angrily to the suggestion: "A great deal of thinking has been put into the system that operates now. The whole structure would only collapse if such changes were made."
The second relates to the sycophantic way in which he is being projected. Knowing that Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and the Union cabinet had already agreed to extending the nregs to the entire country, the first thing the Congress organised and publicised after Rahul was named general secretary was to have him head a delegation which met the PM to ask for the extension of the nregs, so that he would be given credit for it. This clearly upset Manmohan—but later when it became apparent that this was a typical Congress ploy to give Rahul a profile, it made the young MP look silly.
Finally, by hyping up his role in election campaigns, ensuring that the spotlight remains on him, even though there is no organisation to deliver whatever goodwill he may generate, there is clearly an effort, say party insiders, to undermine him before he has even started.
The impact of all this is already showing. Not so long ago, there was talk in the party of projecting Rahul as the prime ministerial candidate for ’09. All that talk has vanished—with party leaders now talking of how he has been "overexposed", of how he still has a great deal to learn in his continuing "discovery of India".
As a party insider puts it, "There is clearly a view that it is best to destroy him before we know one way or other whether he has any potential. For, it is clear that the day he takes over—if he is permitted to do so—there will be a new team. And the coterie, all the venal elements, will be history."
