Ecostani | Rahul Gandhi tastes electoral success but the journey ahead is arduous

Even after the polls, Gandhi has ticked the right boxes by raising critical issues in the first session of the 18th Lok Sabha

In politics, the perception of failure is more intense than success. Failure leads people to question the ability of a leader; the public tends to remember failure more than success. Congress leader and leader of opposition in Lok Sabha

Churachandpur [Manipur], July 08 (ANI): Leader of Opposition in Lok Sabha and Congress leader Rahul Gandhi meets with victims of Manipur violence, at a relief camp in Churachandpur on Monday. (ANI Photo)(Congress X)

Rahul Gandhi should know: He has experienced it the most than any other political leader in India in the past 10 years.

But the truth is that there is no great success without failure. And, it may include epic electoral failures, which could threaten to finish off a leader’s political career.

Gandhi has faced two consecutive Lok Sabha election defeats and failure at several state assembly polls. He has faced dissent from senior party leaders over his style of functioning and there were voices, both inside and outside his party, which argued that he was a disaster for the Congress.

Gandhi took electoral defeats and failures in his stride and tried to reinvent himself with every fall. His Bharat Jodo Yatra in 2022 was a landmark in that transformation as he walked from Kanyakumari to Kashmir covering 3,570 km in close to five months, getting him both noticed and appreciated for his endurance and fight against the seemingly infallible might of the ruling party.

That long walk was more than a journey: It was the first major step, which helped Gandhi transform his image from a political scion to a national leader.

The Yatra also laid the foundation for the 2024 Lok Sabha electoral performance, in which Congress won 99 seats, even though it appeared in the doldrums after the consecration of the Ram temple in Ayodhya.

Gandhi consistently harped on caste census to back his slogan of “Jitni Aabadi Utna Haq” (rights as per population proportion) and did not fall into the Bharatiya Janata Party’s (BJP) trap of turning polls into a fight between Hindu religion and others. He constantly spoke about the backwards, minorities, farmers and the poor even at the risk of repeating himself.

He was able to send a message to people that he was concerned about their well-being and that the policies of the ruling BJP had made the lives of common citizens difficult. His frequent claim that the BJP government was Adani-Ambani’s government also found resonance among people and he was perceived as one leader, who was constantly speaking against the BJP.

Opinion and exit polls during and before the Lok Sabha election did not give the Congress more than 60-70 seats, and the party winning 99 seats was seen as an achievement against the “mighty” and “resource-rich” BJP. Although still far from the majority mark of 273 in Lok Sabha, the performance indicated that the Congress can bounce back – but only if it strengthens its on-ground party network and reaches and focuses on people-centric issues.

To be sure, five years is a long time in politics.

Even after the polls, Gandhi has ticked the right boxes by raising critical issues in the first session of the 18th Lok Sabha: The farmers’ demands, the alleged NEET paper leak and the problem of unemployment.

Gandhi’s maiden speech as leader of the Opposition was one of the sharpest speeches delivered by an Opposition leader in Lok Sabha for a decade or so.

After the session, Gandhi’s visit to the camps of the displaced in Manipur – victims of a 14-month-long ethnic strife in the state -- showed his seriousness about raising people-centric issues in Parliament. He also visited the homes of victims of the Hathras stampede in which 121 people were killed, even though he did not speak against Suraj Pal alias Bhole Baba, who was holding the religious congregation where the incident happened.

While Gandhi may be ticking the right boxes, his party appears to be replicating the BJP model of attempting to weaken the opposition. The Congress has inducted at least eight lawmakers from the Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS) in Telangana in the past fortnight. The party also gave tickets to turncoats in the Lok Sabha polls within days of their joining, undermining its own leaders and workers, and indicating that it is no different from the BJP in certain electoral matters.

However, the 13 assembly by-poll results on Saturday showed voters don’t generally favour turncoats. Here are examples: In Himachal, the two independents, Hoshyar Singh and K L Thakur, who resigned from the assembly, and joined the BJP, lost to Congress, and the third independent, Ashish Sharma, won by a slender margin of 1,571 votes.

In Madhya Pradesh, Congress turncoat and BJP candidate, Kamlesh Pratap Shah, won by a thin margin of about 3,000 votes after trailing to Congress candidate Dheeran Invati for 14 of the 21 rounds. In Uttarakhand’s Badrinath, Congress turncoat and BJP candidate Rajendra Singh Bhandari lost to Congress candidate Lakhpat Singh Butola by over 5,000 votes, even though in bypolls people usually prefer the ruling party candidate. BJP is the ruling party in Uttarakhand.

The positive outcome of recent elections provides a glimmer of hope for Gandhi. He should not let his connection with people wither and must fulfil his duties as an effective Leader of the Opposition in Lok Sabha. He needs to visit states such as Andhra Pradesh and Odisha where the Congress has a chance to grab the main opposition space. Gandhi needs to break his party’s electoral dilemma in Gujarat and Rajasthan, the two important Hindi heartland states, where the Congress is the main opposition party and where it cannot piggyback on alliance partners.

As the BJP appears to cede space with Prime Minister Narendra Modi getting old and his replacement not apparent, it is the right time for Rahul Gandhi to shake off the shackles of past electoral setbacks and emerge as a national leader.

Chetan Chauhan, national affairs editor, analyses the most important environment and political story in the country this week