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Thursday, May 19, 2005

Opinion

Opinion - News Analysis

The Congress party's heir apparent?

K.V. Prasad

Is Rahul Gandhi a reluctant politician?

Rahul Gandhi... keeping a low profile.

MARCH 21, 2004 was a quiet Sunday. The quietness suddenly gave way to excitement when in the evening the Congress party announced that Rahul Gandhi would be its candidate from Amethi parliamentary constituency. That was as formal an announcement as one could get of the Nehru-Gandhi family blooding its young scion in the political arena. And it was reason enough for Congressmen and other political pundits to declare the arrival of an heir-apparent.

Speaking to the press in Munshiganj on April 6, a day after filing his nomination, Mr. Gandhi pointed out that not much was known about him and that the media were drawing their own conclusions based on sparse inputs gathered from secondary sources. He had a point. A year later, information on him available in the public domain remains as sparse. It invites the question: is Mr. Gandhi a reluctant politician?

In Parliament he is regular in occupying his allotted seat on the backbenches that he shares with a dozen-odd first-time members of the Lok Sabha. The 14th Lok Sabha has 230 debutants and among the younger generation, Mr. Gandhi rubs shoulders on the party benches with the likes of Sachin Pilot, Milind Deora, Sandeep Dikshit, Jatin Prasad, and Madhu Yakshi Goud. The women contingent in this league includes D. Purandeswari and Tejaswini Ramesh. Barring Mr. Gandhi, all of them have shown a healthy appetite for participating in debates and discussions.

The only time Mr. Gandhi has so far spoken in the House was a special mention on March 21, 2005, through a written text, on the plight of Uttar Pradesh's sugarcane growers. Predictably, it made the headlines. Congress president Sonia Gandhi, in the first row, applauded. Senior Ministers thumped their desks as a mark of appreciation; some party leaders walked up and congratulated him on his "maiden speech."

The Congress' campaign managers and the media department went out of the way to point out to the world that their "Generation Next" leader had "spoken" in the House. The party did not find it necessary to make a similar gesture to other first time party MPs who had contributed in significant measure. The job was left for others. For instance, the Congress member from Andhra Pradesh, Ms. Purandeswari, daughter of Telugu Desam Party founder, N.T. Rama Rao, earned praise on several occasions both from Speaker Somnath Chatterjee and the Nationalist Congress Party chief Sharad Pawar, for her intelligent interventions.

Of course, the Congress can claim that following Mr. Gandhi's intervention, the Mulayam Singh Government in Uttar Pradesh walked the extra mile to ensure payment of dues to growers by private sugar mill owners. It is another matter that the Samajwadi Party has a different view on the issue.

Mr. Gandhi attends the House regularly during the first half of the day. On many occasions, when proceedings in the House turned noisy requiring a demonstration of lungpower from the ruling coalitions benches, many of the young Congress MPs including Mr. Gandhi had to be coaxed by the floor leaders to stand up in protest.

As one Minister and senior MP observed in a private conversation, if the Congress leadership wants to project Mr. Gandhi as the next Prime Minister, he should at least be mingling with party MPs and others in the Central Hall. After all, members of Parliament do represent the people and acquaintance with them would give him a different kind of understanding of the problems at the grassroots level.

Recent reports suggested that Mr. Gandhi had joined an association of Parliamentarians engaged in the Save Tiger campaign. Apparently it cast a shadow on the United Progressive Alliance commitment to bring forward a legislation providing rights to traditional forest dwellers since the group pressure was to protect the habitat of tigers. The home page of Mr. Gandhi on the Parliament website identifies promotion of primary education, empowerment of Dalits and other oppressed sections of society, preservation of marine environment and international affairs as special interests. Playing chess, surfing the Internet, listening to music, reading and flying are listed as his favourite pastimes. He has pursued an M.Phil in Development Economics.

Low-key visits

Mr. Gandhi has visited various parts of the country with little or no media attention barring an odd-photograph or news networks visual sans sound-bytes. A diehard family loyalist and a senior Congress Working Committee member says Mr. Gandhi was doing the most sensible thing — acquainting himself with the country by travelling around. Prophecy or sycophancy, only time will tell.

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The Congress party's heir apparent?