Rahul misses Punjab date

Clearly Gandhi scion's priority is UP, not Punjab

Congress General Secretary Rahul Gandhi may be touring Uttar Pradesh vigorously these days and occasionally in other parts of the country but he has so far missed a date with poll-bound Punjab.

I get the itinerary of Rahul in my mail from his office in New Delhi whenever he decides on a political sojourn which needs to be made public. The latest one was his itinerary in the districts of Shahjahanpur, Farrukhabad, Kannauj, Auraiya and Kanpur Dehat between December 15 and 17. I keep waiting that may be Congress and its young leader would take Punjab more seriously, canvass for the party, appeal to the youth and give momentum to the party’s campaign. But none of the mails which I receive have any information about political meetings of Rahul in the food basket of the country. Almost all mails which I get from his office these days, list a series of meetings in some nondescript village or a mofussil town in Uttar Pradesh.

Will he or won’t he? This is the question Congress persons of the state are discussing in the run-up to the polls. Obviously, he may address a few run of the mill meetings here and there when the polls for Punjab are announced along with other senior leaders. But clearly, the priority area for the heir apparent of the Gandhi-Nehru family is UP and not Punjab.

When I was working for the news agency PTI, I had come to Amritsar from New Delhi, specifically to cover a press conference of Rahul a little over three years ago on November 18, 2008 in a school near the walled city. This was on how the Indian Youth Congress was being democratized and how new talent was being spotted and promoted in the party and how Congress was different from other parties. In this press conference, Rahul was flanked by former CEC M J Lyngdoh and former EC official K J Rao, the person behind the free and fair Bihar polls which brought Nitish Kumar to power in the state over six years ago.

Three years down the line, ask any Congress person in the state about democratization of youth Congress and they will list a series of “elected” youth Congress office-bearers in Punjab whose fathers or grandfathers were MLAs, MPs or Chief Ministers of the state. Obviously, these leaders know Congress politics well and would never come on record.

What Rahul could find more troublesome is the fact that in the ongoing internal elections of IYC being held in a “democratic manner”, the contenders are again the same sons of MLAs, former MLAs, former ministers and former party leaders. Moreover, the internal polls of the IYC reflect all the ills plaguing the parent party. Violence has broken out in Amritsar and Ferozepur during these polls and many youth Congress leaders have returned with broken skull, broken hand or ribs during scuffle with the rival factions. “Dynasty and patronage”, the two ills which Rahul himself identified and wanted to remove in his series of meetings earlier are back with a vengeance in the IYC politics of the state. The irony is that no one questions the efficacy of these elections and long term benefits for the parent party, if any. You simply cannot question the 41-year old leader, if you want to survive even for a day in Congress politics.

I followed Rahul in two more election meetings during the 2009 Lok Sabha elections in Punjab. One was again at Amritsar where he shared the dais with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and another meeting in Ludhiana in support of AICC Spokesman Manish Tewari who was contesting from there. Then I covered a series of his meetings in Rajasthan, Uttarakhand and Uttar Pradesh. In fact, in a majority of these, he spoke about the same issue. It seemed he was reading from a script even though he was not and it was difficult to find a punch-line after the first two meetings. Reporting from the ground had become too repetitive.

So has Rahul lost his charm and appeal seven and a half years after he formally joined politics by contesting the elections from Amethi in 2004? This is what some critics and well-wishers of Rahul, who engage in political discussion, ask me. I have no definite answer at this point of time and perhaps it is slightly premature to judge him.

But there are certain specific instances where I can say that he has been rather indifferent to the media or simply not concerned in sharing his thoughts on burning issues with the country. He spoke about his views on FDI in retail almost a month after the issue came in public domain. But this is only the latest instance of procrastination. There have been several such instances in the past where the country keenly waited for the version of the future leader but to no avail. In fact, the belated reaction of Rahul on FDI has come at a time when the issue has practically been abandoned after opposition protest.

Two and a half years ago, I remember getting an SMS that Rahul wanted to interact with mediapersons at his Tughlaq Road residence in New Delhi. Around 40 mediapersons reached the venue where Rahul talked on several issues. Pankaj Shankar, his media advisor and close aide Kanishka Singh were present. During the interaction itself, it was decided that the entire conversation would be off-record and nothing would come in print. Mediapersons agreed on the condition that Rahul would keep meeting them and share his thoughts on issues concerning the country. Next day, not a single line appeared in print anywhere but that was the last time perhaps he had an informal interaction with the media.

I went to Amethi to cover the visit of Rahul in his constituency several times in the hope that he could perhaps give an interview or interact with the journalists in a group. It never materialised. I would point out two specific instances of these visits. Rahul was visiting a village in Amethi to find out about the work being done by the self help group there. Only three or four journalists reached the venue and we were kept at an arms length by the security. When the meeting got over, I was standing on the sides of a village road along with Shakeel Akhtar, senior Journalist from Navbharat Times. Both of us gleefully thought that Rahul would answer a couple of questions and we would have our exclusive stories ready and keep our organisations happy. Rahul was at the wheels of a Green Quallis SUV. He simply refused Shakeel Akhtar’s and my request to answer 2-3 questions even though we had been covering him for a while and there was no possibility of cross questions in that village.

Then during his visit to a school near Sultanpur, the only road to the village was completely blocked by security personnel. A media contingent comprising of over two dozen journalists from Delhi and Lucknow kept waiting for around 4 hours on the road. He went to the function and came back and did not speak a word, simply waived his hand. It left everyone frustrated and agitated as the wait in the peak of summer had gone in vain.

The country definitely expects more from Rahul, who is supposed to be the PM in waiting and the future leader of the country. Speak your mind out. Let the country know about your ideas, views and what you are thinking. Let the people judge you on the basis of your intellect and not your dynasty. This will do you no harm. It will only help you. (18.12.2011)

(The writer is Senior Editor, The Pioneer, Chandigarh)

http://www.dailypioneer.com/state-editions/chandigarh/28565-rahul-misses-punjab-date.html