Rahul
Gandhi has been missing the point - and the phenomenon is now so famous that it
has become a routine stuff in Indian politics of the day.
He
could not capitalize on the 'brand Kalawati', a grand opening that he had got
in Indian politics (with a possible tag of 'politician with a difference'), and
let her be a dragging point for his political career when it started maturing.
He
could not come forward and take the country's leadership in unorthodox ways
that the country needed. He had the golden opportunity of taking credit of
giving India's its Lokpal after the massively popular anti-corruption movement
of 2011 and thus had the space to present himself as the 'new type leader of
Indian masses' but he failed to do so, even if he later on, famously tore down
his own government's document to 'protect' tainted lawmakers.
No
effective movement on 'Lokpal' or no effective curb on political corruption
later on told us that Rahul failed to translate display of his public aggression
and maturity into action. In fact, if we go by the need to set the precedent,
even his family needs to come clean on corruption allegations on Robert Vadra,
his brother-in-law.
He
very eloquently spoke about his hatred of corruption at a FICCI event in
December 2013 - “Biggest issue is
corruption, it is an unacceptable burden on our people. We must fight
corruption.” - while just before
that, his party's government in Maharashtra had 'summarily rejected the Adarsh
Housing Society scam report (report which implicated many political leaders and
bureaucrats). While speaking at the FICCI AGM, he was silent on this report.
Questions
over Rahul's intent were being raised as early as 2010 with Congress' debacle
in Bihar assembly polls. And with every such political development where Rahul
could have scored a point well above the others, something that he never did, questions
on his intent became more and more routine.
Why
did Rahul Gandhi took almost a week (Nido Taniam’s incident happened on January
29 last year) to call the Home Minister, Sushilkumar Shinde, to ensure justice
for Nido? Nido Taniam, a 20-year old student from Arunachal Pradesh, was beaten
fatally by some shopkeepers in the Lajpat Nagar market of Delhi after he
reacted to the racist comments by them, and who, later on, succumbed to his
injuries.
There
was a visible 'bias' in Rahul Gandhi's visits to places like Bhatta Parsaul,
Michpur, Maval and now to Bisada and Sunped, the Haryana villages.
Where
his party was in power, Rahul Gandhi took some 8 days in visiting the crime
scenes, i.e., in Mirchpur in Haryana in April 2010 where Dalits were murdered
and tortured and in Maval in Pune in August 2011 where protesting farmers were
killed in police firing.
While
he was very active in visiting places where he was in political opposition like
Bhatta Parsaul in Greater Noida (Uttar Pradesh), the symbolic point of 2011
Uttar Pradesh land acquisition protests. During May 7-9, 2011, the village had
violent protests leading to death of some policemen and villagers and Rahul,
despite prohibitory orders, was in the village on May 11 to protest along with
villagers. Same, we can say, about Bisada in Greater Noida and Sunped in
Faridabad (Haryana, that has now a BJP government).
Farm
suicides in Maharashtra have been a regular curse but Rahul was never so
alarmed about visiting the state when his party's government was there, but he
mapped the country in most other areas considered crisis hotbeds of farmers'
suicides and agrarian crisis.
And
if we scratch more, we will easily come across many more such instances.
The
nation knows Rahul Gandhi is not corrupt. Instead, most political commentators prefer
to call him a 'reluctant' (or forced) politician.
In
retrospective, it seems he could never set his eyes on his targets or we can
say he could never set his aims for his trajectory ahead or he was never careful
about his political future ahead.
©/IPR: Santosh Chaubey - http://severallyalone.blogspot.com/
