The Hindu : Front Page : Congress cadre bewildered at Rahul's statements

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Tuesday, Apr 17, 2007
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Congress cadre bewildered at Rahul's statements

Venkitesh Ramakrishnan

`He is being advised by people who have recently left the corporate world to join politics'

Rahul Gandhi

Shajahanpur: The Central and State leadership of the Congress has stoutly defended Rahul Gandhi's statement on the Nehru-Gandhi family's role "in dividing Pakistan" as a valid historical assessment, but the reaction among the party's rank and file in Uttar Pradesh does not reflect the same conviction. On the contrary, sections of the Congress support base admit that they are a bit bewildered by the political points being made the young leader, though his presence in the campaign has indeed enthused them. Scores of Congress workers that this correspondent met between Badayun and Shajahanpur, the campaign trail hit by Rahul Gandhi over the weekend, were unable to decipher or elucidate the political purpose of Rahul Gandhi's comment on the division of Pakistan.

"One cannot make out why he brought in this element to highlight the political determination of the Nehru family," said Veerender Kashyap of Dataganj, who had travelled around 30 km and waited for more than five hours to see and hear "Rahul Baba" at Badayun. This Youth Congress worker was of the view that Rahul Gandhi should have focused more on the "extreme sacrifices that the Nehru-Gandhi family had made in the interests of the nation." That, he felt, would have touched an emotional chord with the masses in general and dormant party workers in particular.

`Soft Hindutva'

A veteran Congress activist from Bareilly, who wished to remain anonymous, perceived shades of the Rajiv Gandhi brand of soft Hindutva politics in Rahul Gandhi's statement. "A claim that the Congress had actively worked for the division of Pakistan would certainly appeal more to a section of sectarian Hindus. Rajiv Gandhi had also tried to win this segment over in the mid-eighties by supporting the construction of a Ram temple in Ayodhya and overseeing the Shilanyas (laying of foundation stone) for the same."

In his view, there was nothing wrong in making such efforts during the election campaign, but this has to be timed and placed perfectly to have the maximum effect. He was of the opinion that the young Gandhi had failed in this regard. "In the first place, Badayun, with a significant Muslim population, was not the ideal location to make this statement." The Congress candidate here, Fakker Ahmed, belongs to a well-known Muslim family of the town.

The consensus among a number of Congress activists in the districts of Badayun, Bareilly and Shajahanpur is that the young leader has made the statement without sufficient deliberation. They also shared the impression that the political points expressed by Rahul Gandhi as well as their coinage are being decided by a group of people who have recently left the corporate world to join politics. "Their inexperience could well be the cause for the mistiming of [the] statements," said the Bareilly veteran referring to the earlier controversial statement about the protection of the Babri masjid.

"Rahulji may have been told that the statement (that the Babri Masjid would have been protected if a member of the Gandhi family had been in power) would win over a section of Muslims to the party but all that it evoked was ridicule in the minority community."

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