What has happened to Congress leader Rahul Gandhi? Why are his speeches getting increasingly inflammatory and controversial? The statements he has been making during his Bharat Jodo Nyay Yatra and the aggression he has been displaying, have been raising many eyebrows, apart from having negative consequences. One such negative consequence was visible on Tuesday at Rae Bareli in Uttar Pradesh, when a mob of his supporters beat up a reporter from this newspaper’s sister news channels, India News and NewsX, right in front of his eyes. Getting carried away while trying to hammer home the message that the system—which, by the way, his party’s governments controlled for over six decades—is designed to discriminate against the Other Backward Classes (OBCs), he has started making irresponsible statements. He has let the world know that he has a grouse against the Indian media, which, he believes, does not give him any coverage. He has been making this claim from every platform, not only in India, but also when abroad. He complains that the media either covers Narendra Modi 24X7, or shows Aishwarya Rai dancing—he said that—and has no time for him.
When abroad he propagates that he does not win elections because the system, including the media, does not let him win. He has every reason to feel angry for failing to turn around the fortunes of the Congress in the last ten years, and for his own lacklustre political career of 20 years. But isn’t all of it his own doing? Being an inheritor of the Nehru-Gandhi family name, he started right at the top and got served on a platter a national political party that has ruled the country for decades. The biggest question he has faced from within his party and family is, if and when he should become party president.
It is very rarely that any politician gets this sort of a head-start, even when coming from an established political family. That his career has been a flop in spite of this, is his own doing. He needs to introspect why he does not shine as a politician, why the issues he takes up do not find any resonance with the electorate, why his party is losing grassroots connect. Instead, he seems to believe that his failure has been engineered by someone else, including the media.
In the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, his biggest issue was the purchase of the Rafale jets by the Narendra Modi government, which was royally ignored by the electorate. It was solely his fault that he could not give a credible message to the voters. For the 2024 elections, he has latched on to caste as an election issue, and is vigorously trying to drive a wedge between OBCs and the general category. In his bid to woo the OBCs, who have shifted towards the BJP in the last few years, he is shouting from the rooftops that OBCs are a deprived lot and that their share in every walk of life, including governance is non-existent. Tiny details like the Prime Minister of the country being an OBC do not matter to him when spinning this fiction.
However, even if all his outlandish claims are ignored as his desperation to change the national narrative in his party’s favour, what is astounding is the aggression he is displaying from public platforms. What his supporters did on Tuesday to the Indian News/NewsX reporter—ironically a Yadav, an OBC, whose saviour Rahul Gandhi claims to be—is a direct fallout of this aggressive messaging. He asked the reporter’s name and caste, and apparently taken aback by the fact that the reporter was an OBC, he started hollering, “name your owner” and then turned to the crowd and triumphantly declared that the owners were not OBCs. But by that time, his heckling of the reporter has had an impact and the agitated mob started beating the latter, with Rahul Gandhi then hastily intervening by saying “maro mat, maro mat (do not beat him)”. And all this on camera. Fiery public speeches work as long as they do not come across as borderline instigation, and in this case, the tone and tenor of his speech and the nature of his questions breached that fine line.
Even in his press conferences, Rahul Gandhi has been singling out what he claims to be sold-out media and has been mocking the reporters, who are there to do their job. On the one hand he says the media does not give him coverage, but when the media gives him coverage, they are either taunted by him or physically assaulted by his supporters. This is irresponsible and does not behove a national leader who his party fancies as a future Prime Minister. Senior leaders have to lead by example. Playing street level politics, inciting a mob are marks of immaturity and irresponsibility. Sadly, Rahul Gandhi’s behaviour on Tuesday does not inspire confidence. Interestingly, this was Rahul Gandhi’s first visit to his supposed family borough, Rae Bareli, in five years. Even his mother Sonia Gandhi, MP from Rae Bareli, has barely visited the constituency in the last five years, while her daughter and Rahul’s sister Priyanka only once. Will Rahul Gandhi blame the voters of Rae Bareli if they decide to ditch the Gandhis, if either brother or sister decides to contest from there in the Lok Sabha elections? Rahul Gandhi needs to realise that the fault lies within, and not with the system—certainly not with the media.