Rahul Gandhi, keeping up with his family custom, announced recently that he’s going to contest elections from a second seat in Wayanad, Kerala. Running southwards for a face-saver has been a Gandhi tradition. Indira Gandhi chose Chikmagalur, after being ousted in 1977, in the by-election in 1978. Sonia Gandhi followed her mother-in-law’s footsteps and contested from Bellary in 1999 and finally, Rahul Gandhi has inherited the tradition to avoid an embarrassment in the north. With a fierce challenge, in the form of Smriti Irani, facing the Congress president in Amethi, securing a comfortable victory would be an uphill task.
The Congress president might be a little mistaken in his belief that a second seat in Wayanad can save him. After all, the ‘safe seat’ for his mother was not so safe in 1999. Sonia Gandhi after being crowned as the President of Congress in 1998, faced a tough battle against Sushma Swaraj in Bellary in 1999 and could only manage to secure a victory by a 56100 vote margin. At that time the Congress leaders rallied behind Sonia Gandhi, putting in all efforts to make sure that she wins the by-election. This should be proof enough for Rahul Gandhi that a little miscalculation can end up in a disaster.
Wayanad is not Bellary and there are enough reasons to believe that. Firstly, until 1999 General Elections, Bellary was the only constituency in the country from where the Congress had not lost in the previous 12 Lok Sabha elections while Wayanad is a relatively new constituency, carved out in 2008. Two elections may not be enough to draw a pattern for Rahul Gandhi to rely on. Bellary was an industrially and financially backward constituency, where Congress’, as Shekhar Gupta puts it, ‘Meena Kumari’ politics with their promises of freebie distribution worked well. However, this is 2019 and not 1999 where the aspirations of people have reached new horizons. The Robin Hood politics on which the Congress bases its strategy will not work in the 21st Century. Also, Wayanad is a different game than Bellary in all ways possible. Wayanad is in a better state than Bellary with way better numbers on the human development parameters. The comparison of literacy rates of Wayanad (2011 census) and Bellary (2001 census) shows us that the difference in percentage is as big as 32%. So, this might be a little miscalculated risk that the Congress president is willing to take.
In Amethi, pictures of the underdeveloped constituency have been doing the rounds on the internet. One of these pictures shows Rajiv Gandhi entering a hut in Amethi in one half of the image and Rahul Gandhi doing the same in the other half of the image. Who better than the people of Amethi would understand the plight of the constituency. From Indira Gandhi, through Sonia and then Rahul, they have just received disappointment as a gift from the Gandhi family. They now see a ray of hope in Smriti Irani and this scares Rahul Gandhi. But as has been mentioned above, this time, his Plan B might not be very foolproof.