As the Indian parliamentary election results neared completion on Tuesday, supporters at the Congress party’s national headquarters at 24 Akbar Road in the heart of Delhi broke into celebrations.
The happiest man was Rahul Gandhi as Congress, powered by his campaign, won 99 seats on its own recording its best performance in national elections since 2004.
Often derided as “pappu” and dismissed as a serial ‘re-inventor’ constantly looking for an identity, Rahul perhaps thought he had had the last laugh in this Lok Sabha election. Congress’ tally of seats is not only a quantum jump from the worst show of 52 seats five years ago but more importantly prevented BJP from getting a majority on its own. This is the first time that BJP under Modi failed to get to the magic figure of 272 in the 543-Lok Sabha.
Rahul carried out a ‘padyatra’ from Kanyakumari to Kashmir in 2022-23 and a “Nyay Yatra’ this year from Manipur to Mumbai in the run up to the parliamentary elections setting the narrative for Congress and staying the course and refusing to be distracted by setbacks.
Riding a tempo with migrant workers, tractor in the company of farmers, hugging a child, bowing to comfort a woman who lost her husband or attacking BJP, particularly Prime Minister Narendra Modi, in press conferences, short videos and social media platforms–Rahul was the centre-piece almost all over.
The 53-year-old scion of the Gandhi family describes himself as the best chess player among Indian politicians. His latest gambit of making social justice as the central theme of his party’s campaign seems to have paid off in the political chess with his party making a surprising comeback in the Hindi belt, making significant gains in Rajasthan, Haryana and Uttar Pradesh.
Even the harshest of detractors of Rahul would concede that his 2024 campaign was by far his best as he focused on bread and butter issues and the party’s welfare guarantees which struck a chord with a section of the voters.
A key feature of Rahul’s election campaign was that he depended heavily on social media as opposed to conventional interactions and interviews with the mainstream media. His repeated claim at rallies that BJP would change the Constitution if it is voted back to power as he carried a copy of the Constitution succeeded in whipping up a fear perception.
He contested from Kerala’s Wayanad and Uttar Pradesh’s Rae Bareli constituency his mother Sonia Gandhi gave up. In Rae Bareli, he bettered Sonia’s margin of victory in 2019.
The half a decade has been challenging for Rahul’s political career. He lost the Lok Sabha poll in Amethi to BJP’s Smriti Irani by over 55,000 votes in 2019. His strategy of pitching the 2019 polls campaign of Congress on the alleged scam in Rafale fighter jets purchase issue and bringing Modi in the line of fire boomeranged badly. But he did not budge and continued to attack the Prime Minister—this time on the Adani issue.
