Politics is an art of winning people’s heart and mind, the more you are capable of convincing people the more successful you are. But on the flip side if you do not make the least expected you make a mockery of yourself.
It recalls me of a 90’s Bollywood actor called “Kishan Kumar”, who was launched with a great fanfare by his producer singer brother “Gulshan Kumar” but just could not make it to box office, both the brothers were never convinced and kept launching one film after another hoping for him to click someday, while every launch was turning up a greater embarrassment and a joke in people’s eyes till one fine day better sense prevailed and he realized it is just not his cup of coffee.
Rahul Gandhi is just another flop show election after election, being the congress scion and hitchhiking with the “Gandhi” surname he has been given multiple launch pads. Being in politics for almost a decade him hardly been a crowd puller and people doubt his ability to bring the party back to power.
Take the latest for example the “khat pe charcha” theme which was kind of a replica of “Chai pe charcha” but the program turned out to be a complete fiasco, with people turning up and laying up their hands on laddus, water bottles and the khats (cots) and barely a few interested in the content of speech he accusing the Modi govt. The point is not about the khat loot, but more about his reputation to be taken seriously by the people. The Congress vice-president aims to cover 2,500-km across 39 districts and 233 assembly constituencies in Uttar Pradesh before elections next year.
With every stoppage he is definitely making news, the next one being his visit in Ayodhya to Hanuman Garhi temple and a visit to “Kichaucha Sharif Dargah” a nearby Muslim shrine to perform a balancing act, only if he could have visited a church and a gurudwara also would have made it a perfect 10, but unfortunately there have been very few Christians and Sikhs in the state. The calculation has been such that he visits Ayodhya but not the makeshift of “Ram Lalla”, because that will really anger the Muslims and therefore his visit restricted only to the Hanuman Garhi temple, this will also project him as a “soft Hindutva” icon and may attract Brahmins and other OBC votes, but since this tag of “soft Hindutva” icon will create resentment in Muslims he need to pacify them and therefore a visit to this dargah.
Finally mission accomplished with “soft Hindus” and “Muslims” happy and will vote for Congress and they will ride him back to power in the state of UP.
Whoop … too tired and confused to understand the strategy, well I am too, but then this is how Congress have been thinking & planning for decades.
You visit a temple or a mosque or church to pray god and not to appease people that’s the bottom-line, these tricks of fooling people may have worked for them since independence but people have become smarter and you just cannot keep them illusioned forever.
People look for concrete actions and plan and not gimmicks. His plans to revive a dying party has already proved to be a dampener, but his ideas to lead the nation is even more a bigger failure. The theory goes this way, either you be a part of the problem or a solution, highlighting a problem is good but not providing a definite solution to that problem is not liked by the people. There has been no specific constructive suggestions on variety of subjects plaguing the citizens which can be termed as real discovery, for example the farmer’s problem or the drought & the floods issue or the roads & the highways, sports, reduction in taxes or even simplification of govt. process in our day to day lives, there has been nothing concrete on such issues but generic & sweeping references on practically everything and anything.
Professionally you may be given a chance or two to prove a point, else you are asked to pack your bags and make way for others, that’s how we get the best, but the congress has this baggage of the dynasty and probably it’s too late for them to get rid of it now.
