While 2016 has been excitingly eventful and prosperous for many, the year has not been graceful for the Congress Party (which celebrated its 132nd Year few days back) and it’s Vice President Rahul Gandhi. Being hopeful against hope of reviving and strengthening the party’s hold on the National level, Congressmen tried vilely to project their leader in the best possible way ignoring his previous goof-ups post the Lok Sabha elections, even going to the extent of voicing their support for Rahul Gandhi to be conferred with the post of INC’s party President.
From January, 2016 till the end of December, 2016, the downward spiral journey of Rahul Gandhi, the politician would be briefly documented herein to understand the future potency of INC in the forthcoming Uttar Pradesh (UP) elections and the distant 2019 elections.
Starting January, 2016 when the whole country was debating the mighty ‘intolerance’ in India, Mr. Rahul Gandhi abruptly disappeared to Europe for a 2 week holiday after having raised a half-hearted debate in the parliament on the 1st December, 2015. A lot was expected from him on his return, with a visit to Mumbai scheduled on 15th January, Rahul Gandhi addressed students of Narsee Monjee College where amidst he allegedly ended up saying the famous quotes ‘Steve Jobs of Microsoft’, leading to him being trolled mercilessly by the Twitterati, barring his hardcore supporters who tried to defend him and his words in vain. The INC’s concocted attempt to manipulate the Q&A session also did not help when the students started chanting Modi’s name during Rahul’s time there.
The whole of February, Rahul Gandhi campaigned vehemently, politicizing and communalizing Rohith Vemula’s unfortunate suicide and by supporting the JNU heartthrobs. Trying to score political brownie points against the BJP, Rahul and the INC did not hold back from giving active support to those anti-nationals. While in Vemula’s case, he gruesomely tried to reach out to the Dalit vote bank portraying himself to be their messiah. In JNU, he whole-heartedly supported the likes of Kanhaiya Kumar and Omar Khalid (students glorifying terrorist Azfal Guru and responsible for raising Anti-India slogans). From attending protests to giving stray press statements against the PM, Rahul gave all he had, in a bid to sensationalise the issues which could help the INC in the forth-coming assembly elections in Kerala and Assam.
Continuous protests and disruptions were seen during the Budget session, and while the INC and the like minded opposition parties had hoped for creating a hysteria over Vemula’s death by blocking the passage of Bills in the parliament, the same backfired woefully for them all when the President, and ex-congressman Pranab Mukherjee during his address to the joint session of both the houses warned the opposition to debate and discuss rather than protest and disrupt.
Rahul Gandhi continued spearheading his attack on PM Modi, in March where the Congress MP from Varanasi, stupendously called the Chairman of Lok Sabha Venugopal as Madam Speaker. During his 15 minute cameo, Gandhi attired in his trademark white kurta-pyjama addressed the house, targeting the PM for rising dal and fuel prices in the country. The INC Vice President left no stone unturned, aimlessly shot his last arrow in the dark by mocking the ‘Make in India’ logo calling it as ‘Babbarsher’. The accusations did not serve him too well. PM Modi fired headshots, wherein he compared Gandhi’s age and intelligence and as his speech progressed, the PM carefully plucked all feathers out by quoting the erstwhile PM and Rahul Gandhi’s grandmother Indira Gandhi before finally hammering the nails on their coffins by invoking the detailed failures of the 60 year rule of the INC, which by all means included the massive failure of INC flagship projects such as Employment Assurance Scheme (EAS), MNREGA and Aadhar.
With Mumbai simmering in the hot & humid weather and temperatures plumping themselves skywards, Rahul Gandhi Ji in the august company of Sanjay Nirupan (one of the most controversial Indian Politicians) appeared for a photo-op at Deonar Dumping ground where he ridiculed the PM and his Swachh Bharat campaign. As oxymoronic as it may sound, he went to a dumping ground in Mumbai and to ridicule the PM for not keeping the place clean. The INC supremo also met with the jewellers of Jhaweri Bazaar in South Mumbai who were back then protesting against the 1% excise duty on Jewellery manufacturers that the government had imposed on them. While the government had withdrawn the EPF Tax proposal, there was no way, the Finance minister had taken a stand to not take a foot back on this one, defending the levy as a step forward towards the ultimate transition into a uniform tax in the form of GST (Goods and Service Tax).
PFA an imaginative graph attached herewith, for the reader’s easy understanding.
‘X’ Axis = Months and “Y” Axis = popularity (based on numerical value not exceeding 10 points)
Note*: The graph is a representation of Rahul’s popularity based on the incidents mentioned in the article and is subject to change. The graph is only to depict a pattern of popularity which is subject to the author’s discretion. The figures have been obtained based after assessing the incidents and the social media response to selected incidents.*
The Congress Party in its wildest dreams had never imagined, that they would be white washed in the assembly state elections, but May, 19 came as a rude awakening shock wherein INC under the abled (disabled) leadership of Rahul Gandhi managed to lose its foothold in Assam, Kerala, West Bengal and Tamil Nadu, winning Pondicherry as a consolation. The land-slide victory of BJP in Assam saw the latter make inroads into the north eastern region with Congress being reduced to a tiny minority. But if this was not enough, Mr Rahul Gandhi took to twitter shortly after his 46th Birthday on 19th June, announcing that he would be taking a short trip abroad (not disclosing the destination). while most parts of North India simmered in heat and desperation of a good rain, the INC Vice-President quietly made his way out of India leaving behind the commoners to bear the heat while he enjoyed the cool breeze abroad.
Such abrupt trips must have caused a lot of physical toll on the fragile body of our 46 year old youth Icon, and the Nation saw Rahul Gandhi taking a nap in the parliament when the Home Minister of India, Mr. Rajnath Singh was giving his statement on the situation of the Dalit youths being thrashed in Gujarat, Mr. Gandhi was seen napping (at 12.35 pm to be precise) while his party men chanted and protested fervently, thus causing a nationwide uproar (and a bit of laughter as well) wherein the hypocrisy of the Congress party and RG himself was exposed for all to see. Efforts were made to cover up the fiasco by RG’s team by making him attend the protest conducted by the FTII student union in Pune which continued on and off throughout July and August, helping him atleast win back the trust of his ardent followers, who seemed to have lost the plot by then.
August, 2016 made Rahul do acrobatics like a seasoned monkey, doing flip-flops in and outside the Courts of the Country. Following up on a case filed against him for accusing RSS to be Gandhi’s murderers, an RSS member had filed charges against Gandhi seeking his apology. While Gandhi’s affidavit denied making such statements when summoned in Court, RG continued to hold the same position against the RSS outside the court of law, thereby denting his credentials further. All this amidst parallel prosecutions, initiated against him and his mother in the National Herald and Augusta West-Land Case.
Rahul endured a tough hectic September with the organisation of the UP Mahayatra wherein he was scheduled to travel through 39 districts, covering over 2,500 KM. Traveling personally, in his SUV’s Rahul visited above 200 assembly constituencies. The AICC had organised for KhatSabhas, wanting to replicate the “Chai pe Charcha” concept used by the BJP. Call it bad luck or karma, but all the Khat’s vanished minutes after Rahul’s meeting got over, leaving people to conclude that the few people who did attend the Sabha, did so not because they believed in Rahul Gandhi, but because they wanted the Khat’s. Scenario evident enough to suggest the amount of work INC did in the last 70 years after India got Independence. The month was yet to finish, and one last surgical strike on Congress was due, which was duly served to them on the 29thof September, when the Indian Army announced the success of surgical strikes conducted on terror hideouts in Pakistan, claiming revenge for Pathankot and Uri attacks. The success of this operation and the credit taken by the government ‘at congratulating the Army’ certainly did not go down well with Congress men and in the moment of panic and agony, ended up questioning the authenticity of the claims made by the Indian Army. The questioning of the government was fine, but raising questions against the Army saw RG and the whole INC face unprecedented backlash. The common man seemed most irritated with Rahul Gandhi when he tried using ‘khoonkiDalali’ redolent remark against PM Modi, on 6th October,2016. The comment intended to follow the ‘Maut ka saudagar’ comment made by his Mother and INC President, Sonia Gandhi in 2007, but was not received well by the Nation, which failed to see the logic in his rant. But a month passing by without any theatrics by Rahul Gandhi is as rare as Salman Khan not removing his shirt in a movie, the Gandhi scion while addressing a rally in Amethi said the following, “You all are demanding a potato factory in your area, but you should understand I am an opposition leader, I can put pressure on the government, but cannot take the decision. I cannot open a potato factory for farmers.”,setting the internet ablaze with trolls and meme’s summarising Gandhi’s Mahayatra in a nutshell.
And while the whole of 2016 seemed like Shoba De’s articles, senseless, illogical and idiotic, Rahul found solace in accusing the government for the suicide committed by a retired army man, Mr. Ram Kishan Grewal. Even before, the matter was investigated upon, Rahul Gandhi and his compatriot, Delhi CM Kejriwal politicised the issue beyond limits accusing the Central Government for not enacting OROP.
The author seeks to remind the readers, that OROP was initially scrapped by RG’s grandmother and Ex INC President, Indira Gandhi in 1973 thereby introducing Grade pay, but was duly introduced (in phases) by the NarendraModi government in September, 2015.
The year which until now had been anything but tremendous for RG and the INC, turned out to be even worse than anticipated with the abrupt demonetization announced by PM Modi on 8th November, 2016 with Rs. 1000 and Rs. 500 Notes taken out of circulation. The opposition parties which had stocked piles of Black Money to be distributed during the upcoming Chandigarh and UP elections were dumb-founded. The INC which had until now only de-monetized the 25 Paisa coins seemed lost in a mighty web, Modi had spun around them and other notorious opposition parties.
Crawling through November, just when Rahul thought it can’t get worse, Rahul Gandhi’s Twitter A/c was hacked by the Legion group, unleashing a series of tweets highlighting the Congress Party’s duplicity in fighting against corruption. Determined to have the final laugh, Rahul initially called for a press conference where he alerted the government of damning proof of corruption against Narendra Modi. But during his rally in Mehsana, Gujarat, when RG echoed Arvind Kejriwal’s previous allegations against PM Modi for having received money from Sahara and Birla, it was PM Modi who had the last laugh.
Not letting the houses function, the opposition (led by RG and Mamata Banerjee) continued their disruption tactic of not letting the parliament function, causing a loss of 180 Crore (approx*) of the tax payers money during this winter session (Lok Sabha). But even with their continued disruption and the crocodile tears they shed for the common man’s inconvenience (cash crunch due to demonetization), the current government scored heavily, sweeping away the Maharashtra Municipal posts late in November, the Chandigarh civic polls and the Gujarat civic polls respectively in December, routing the INC in all the places where RG had campaigned.
Conclusion:
From a villager in the outskirts of UP to a software Engineer based out of Hinjewadi Pune, every citizen irrespective of his race, religion, caste or gender have over time made a consensus of not taking Rahul Gandhi seriously, and it will be a mammoth task for him to change that mindset in the near future, with his Aloo ki factory remark doing little good to his current image. Rahul’s apathetic attendance of 57% in Lok Sabha and an even more abysmal ratio in participation of debates in the House is for the nation to take note off and if the above patterns not amended in the near future, the coming year could mark Mr. Gandhi’s end game in Indian Politics for good, which would ultimately raise questions on the survival of INC (if and weather)
*- The figures (mentioned in the graph) are a direct resultant of the author’s opinion, the same have not been procured via a survey and cannot be held as authoritative/credible figures in any court of law/tribunal. The author does not take any responsibility for the figures mentioned herein.