When Congress General Secretary Digvijay Singh spoke of Rahul Gandhi returning from his sabbatical to attend a farmers rally in Delhi against the Land Acquisition Bill, the joke doing the rounds was, “you’d think from the hype that’s being generated that Rahul baba is actually going to attend a BJP meeting.”
Since the RTI does not cover personal trips of politicians, I’m not sure if we will ever get to know of Rahul Gandhi’s whereabouts. Strange as it may sound, despite all the controversies swirling around Rahul’s brother-in-law, Robert Vadra, we at least do know what he has been upto!
But the Gandhi scion is not the only one missing in action. Dalit supremo Mayawati too isn’t to be seen. Barring one press conference on land acquisition and her rare visits to Parliament, she’s been playing the disappearing act. She got 20% vote in Elections 2014, yet didn’t manage a single Lok Sabha seat. Perhaps she too is in ‘deep introspection mode’.
As Prime Minister, Atal Bihari Vajpayee would take annual breaks in Manali. It became a regular feature too for journalists such as yours truly to be accompany him to the hill station. He would stay there for a week, and so would we.
Even as Prime Minister, Vajpayee was always willing to mingle with the media. However, neither Rahul Gandhi nor Mayawati let the media anywhere near them. At least with Mayawati you know that she is either in Lucknow or Delhi. Not so with Rahul.
Both Rahul and Mayawati should have been at the forefront of the entire agitation against land acquisition. But they missed a trick.
Here is a handy guide now for those netas who want to play the disappearing trick in future:
# Tweet a picture or two from wherever you are. Whatever you are upto. As public representatives, not good to be totally away from public eye.
# Send a message via YouTube. Remember Kejriwal and Anna during their happy days together? They would record YouTube messages before being arrested.
# No harm in letting people have a peep into your personal lives. What does Rahul Gandhi do on evenings when he is alone? What does Mayawati do just before she goes to bed?
# But whatever you do or don’t do, don’t take off on an introspection tour all by yourself.