On a walk with Rahul Gandhi

Is the thought of being the no-longer-so-young dynast pushing him to take short cuts? His Saharanpur padyatra suggests the older system he once dismissed as ‘rotten’ is roping him back.

December 01, 2015 12:17 am | Updated March 24, 2016 01:06 pm IST

Last Monday, a crowd of about a thousand people stood on a barren piece of land in Pilakhani village of Uttar Pradesh’s Saharanpur district, waiting for the arrival of Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi. As a fleet of cars entered the village, the heavy deployment of police were quick to clear the way so that Mr. Gandhi could start his 6-km-long padyatra, a journey on foot. Though the track was rutted, he was quick on his feet. Young boys sprinted to match his speed and many ran shortcuts through the mango fields. On some occasions, Mr. Gandhi sneezed and coughed as the procession kicked up clouds of dust. But he maintained his composure, smiling at onlookers, waving at women and children who watched him from the rooftops. The display of patience suggested that he was committed to reverse decades of declining vote share in U.P.

Assembly Elections in U.P. are scheduled for 2017. And padyatras are usually undertaken when elections are a few months away. But Mr. Gandhi’s early march was a calculated move. Riding high on the defeat of the Bharatiya Janata Party in the Bihar Assembly elections, — in which the Congress’s tally rose from four to 27 seats — he wants to “keep the momentum going”.

Choosing Saharanpur

Mehboob Jeelani

Though Mr. Gandhi promotes civility in politics, the highlights of the padyatra suggest that he is dependent upon those who believe the elections are won on the angry margins. That approach contradicts what he stood for a decade ago, when he started off his political career with a promise to encourage meritocracy by democratising the Congress party and shifting it from a “closed system” to “an open system”.

On November 21, three days ahead of the padyatra, senior Congress leaders had a long meeting in Noida to devise a new approach for U.P. Madhusudan Mistry, who oversees the State’s party rank and file, later shared titbits of the meeting — that they would open a new membership drive and mobilise the workers to gauge local insecurities that have surfaced in the Samajwadi Party regime. But the padyatra suggests that they heavily rely on the local political dynasts. While Dalits are devoted to the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP), Brahmins support the BJP or SP, and Muslims vote for one family, the Masoods.

Former Union Minister Rasheed Masood and his nephew Imran Masood dominate the region’s political narrative. They have often shifted their loyalties between the Lok Dal, SP and Congress. Just a few months before the 2012 Assembly Elections, the older Mr. Masood quit the SP and joined the Congress. Desperate to score well in the polls, the Congress gave him a free hand in fielding candidates in seven constituencies of western U.P., a move that annoyed a promising Congress leader, Saad Hussain, who comes from Gandhi’s school of thought. To mark his protest, Mr. Hussain quit the party and joined the SP. A mineral water and plastic manufacturer, he canvassed support for the late SP leader Rajinder Rana, who won the polls from the Muslim-dominated Deoband constituency. After proving his worth in the SP, Mr. Hussain was courted by the Congress, which appointed him the national coordinator for minorities.

Just a few months ahead of the 2014 Lok Sabha elections, the Congress received a jolt. The older Masood was jailed on charges of corruption. It turned to Imran and launched him as its candidate from Saharanpur. Though Imran generated a decent support with his activism, his mean-spirited lectures hurt his electoral prospects: he made a nasty remark in one of his campaign speeches saying that Narendra Modi, then the BJP’s prime ministerial candidate, should be “cut into pieces”. The comment not only landed him in jail, but also united the scattered Hindu voters, who voted for the BJP en masse. Imran lost to a BJP politician by a margin of 65,090 votes.

Ignoring past failures The Congress, unwittingly or not, is ignoring past failures. Instead of letting the new faces emerge, it is again compromising Mr. Gandhi’s long-term vision with short-term fire fighting, betting on those people who are backed by a political lineage and have failed them in the past. Speaking to The Hindu , Imran Masood said the party has decided to “poach” as many strong SP leaders as possible. And he’s lobbying hard to bring in a controversial politician, Maviya Ali. According to local accounts, Ali is a protégé of Mahmood Madani, a former MP and Islamic preacher. Last year, after winning Deoband’s municipal elections, Mr. Ali became the head of the city council. In October, he kicked up a controversy for saying there was “no harm if Sadhvi Prachi is killed”. The SP expelled him immediately.

Is Mr. Gandhi breaking away from his Youth Congress idealism and siding with controversial yet famous politicians for temporary gains? The U.P. elections will provide an answer. If he abandons his call for meritocracy and his promise of “unity over division”, it will be hard for young Congress workers to accept that merit alone cannot be the measure of political success. They still look up to him with unstinting belief that one day he’ll tow the party away from the influence of nepotistic politics. Prior to the 2014 Lok Sabha elections, Mr. Gandhi struggled to drum up support; his call for opening and democratising his ranks could not resonate with the people as the Congress reeled under the outbreak of three high-profile scams. Since the Congress is out of power, he now has enough space to mobilise support with his narrative of “democratising” the Congress, promoting young leaders and weeding out parochial attitudes.

Perhaps the thought of being no-longer-so-young dynast is making him desperate, pushing him to take short cuts. The older system, which he’s dismissed as “rotten”, is roping him back in. And he isn’t resisting it. Otherwise, the megaphone at Pilkhani village wouldn’t have blared with sycophancy: “Brothers and sisters, Indira Gandhi’s grandson and the members of Masood family are here. You should feel lucky to meet them.”

mehboob.j@thehindu.co.in

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