More than anyone else, the impact of the Rahul Gandhi show at the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) last Thursday has been the greatest on the Congress party itself.
All the while the Narendra Modi juggernaut has rolled, the archetypal Congressman has watched with disfavour, confusion, and dismay on account of the personal attacks directed by the Gujarat chief minister at Congress president Sonia Gandhi and her son Rahul, now the party’s vice-president.
Congress leaders are open about saying that the BJP leader’s attack against these two have been of a personal and vituperative nature because the opponents of the Congress rightly calculate that if these two symbols of the party can be politically incapacitated, the party will be in serious trouble in the next general election. There was a sense, besides, that the Modi narrative was running on and on without being contested, like episodes of a serial in the Doordarshan of old when no other channel existed.
Mr Gandhi’s presentation, which has been received quite favourably on the whole even if questions have been raised, relieves the ruling party of this agony to a considerable degree.
However, happy as they are at last, Congress folk themselves appear to be asking their leadership their own questions after Mr Gandhi’s first ever outing at a public forum other than Parliament.
Talking to Congress members from different states, the impression is that they’d like to hear from Mr Gandhi something of what he has in mind for harnessing energies from within the party itself, from tapping old veins that have not become defunct, and linking up with the “subaltern” strata within the Congress.
They also desire that broad-brush thoughts on the policy framework outlined by Mr Gandhi, which appeared to many in the CII audience as being “philosophical”, need to be fleshed out and publicly disseminated so that the potential voter may have something concrete to chew on. Some of these issues will come out for public airing if Mr Gandhi continues to address the country by creating opportunities for public expositions, Congressmen feel, just as he did through the industry forum last week.
It is also suggested that he should go out and speak from Lucknow, Patna and Bengaluru, or other state capitals, not only from the national capital. And on these occasions he should offer a more directed message, instead of making an omnibus presentation, that links with issues of public concern.