Rahul Gandhi’s Congress has suffered from two weaknesses. One is ideological confusion which has hampered its ability to craft a clear and appealing narrative. The other is a crumbling organisation.
It has taken 12 years of electoral setbacks and nationwide youth protests inspired by the Cockroach Janta Party (CJP) for the Congress to begin the process of course correction.
Three Assembly polls in 2027—Punjab, Uttarakhand and most importantly, Uttar Pradesh—will test the success, or failure, of its efforts and set the battlefield for the 2029 general election.
Recent weeks have seen a flurry of activity unusual for a party that seemed to be in a state of fossilised stupor just the other day. Call it the "Cockroach" effect.
While the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is still struggling for a coherent response to the changed public mood after the youth protests, the Congress has seized the moment with alacrity, hoping to ride the post-Jantar Mantar momentum which has pushed the ruling regime on the back foot.
Choosing the Right Battles
The first indication that something has shifted in the Congress came when it took an assertive stand on the Vande Mataram issue. This a party which has almost always blinked when confronted with the BJP’s aggressive Hindutva agenda.
Remember Rahul Gandhi’s disastrous experiments to match the BJP’s Hindu appeal with soft Hindutva? He went on temple runs sporting a janeu (sacred thread), rudraksha beads and vermillion paste on his forehead only to be mocked as the BJP’s "Team B".
It was a surprise therefore, when the Congress Working Committee (CWC) thumbed its nose at the BJP’s latest ideological push, subsequently enacted into law, to make all six stanzas of Vande Mataram the national song and prioritise it over the national anthem at all functions.
The CWC decided to stay with the party’s 1937 resolution which retained only the first two stanzas as the national song in deference to the sentiments of minority communities. The last four verses deify Hindus goddesses Durga, Lakshmi and Saraswati as symbols of the motherland.
In the war of words that erupted as the BJP went full throttle calling it "anti-national" and "pro-Muslim", the Congress remained unmoved.
If any party can be said to have won that round, it would be the Congress. After all the name-calling, the BJP dropped the issue like a hot potato and did not pursue it legally.
It could have if it wanted to force the issue. Under the new law passed in the last monsoon session, the Modi government could have filed a criminal complaint against the Congress. Instead, this time, it blinked, possibly unnerved by the Congress party’s uncharacteristically firm stand.
The Vande Mataram decision is a signal that the Congress is seeking ideological coherence in its roots instead of trying to play on a field set by the BJP.
Soft Hindutva to Smash the Patriarchy
The second shift evident in the Congress is clearly influenced by the CJP-led protests. The party is now aggressively wooing students with special emphasis on young women.
Rahul Gandhi’s "Chhatron ki Goonj" and "Smash the Patriarchy" rallies are a clear departure from his earlier flirtation with Mandal politics when he made caste census the centrepiece of his narrative after he found there was no purchase for his version of soft Hindutva.
While Dalits and Muslims remain the party’s core constituency, Rahul Gandhi is trying to weave a broader social coalition with the inclusion of demographic groups like women and the youth.
Again, there seems to be a degree of ideological clarity in the new narrative being constructed as he moves away from copycat politics and emotive issues and focuses on basic bread-and-butter questions like education and jobs.
While he still occasionally slips into "anti-Modi propaganda" (like he did at a recent function when he mocked the Prime Minister for his "hug" diplomacy), Rahul Gandhi is increasingly turning to positive imagery instead of negative discourse.
This is an important shift in the story he is trying to sell. Perhaps he has realised that personal attacks like "chowkidar chor hai" do not make for good politics.
The third visible change is the long overdue attention to housekeeping. A major overhaul of the organisation is expected after recent interviews of prospective candidates to infuse young blood and fresh ideas.
Inspired and Indebted
Rahul Gandhi has taken two striking decisions which could well pay off in the future. After keeping them in the background for a long time, he has entrusted two of the party’s popular faces, sister Priyanka Gandhi Vadra and Sachin Pilot, with larger responsibilities.
In fact, Priyanka Gandhi Vadra is expected to play a much more active role in party affairs with speculation mounting that she may be asked to head the party’s central election committee which will choose candidates for the 2029 general election.
Sachin Pilot has emerged as a valuable and effective troubleshooter in hot spot states like Keralam and Punjab where the Congress has huge stakes. He certainly delivered in Keralam. Now let’s see what he does in faction-ridden Punjab. Ultimately, he could be sent to Rajasthan to lead the Congress campaign in the 2028 assembly poll.
The Congress may not acknowledge it, but it owes a debt of gratitude to the CJP and the youth protests it galvanised. The shift in public mood after Jantar Mantar has brought in greater clarity of thought and spurred the Congress into action.
It, however, is a long haul. The Congress will be tested in all the upcoming assembly elections in the run up to the 2029 battle. In every state going to polls over the next two years, it is either the main challenger or the incumbent defending its government.
Time will tell whether Rahul Gandhi stays the course or fritters away an advantage he has inadvertently been handed by the CJP.
(Arati R Jerath is a senior Delhi-based journalist. She tweets @AratiJ. This is an opinion piece and the views expressed are the author’s own. The Quint neither endorses nor is responsible for them.)