Rahul Gandhi's afternoon ambush

BY Darius Nakhoonwala| IN Opinion | 28/09/2013

Then, like a bolt out of the blue, came Rahul Gandhi’s “intervention” at an Ajay Maken press conference. He had called it to justify the ordinance designed to allow convicted criminals to hold on to their Lok Sabha seats.

Rahul called it “nonsense”, suggested that it be “torn up” and walked off.

Since this happened at around 2 pm I could hear the editors purring. By evening they had burst into full throated song, first on TV and the next day in print. They all sounded calmly furious that an Indian Kim Jong-un could so easily undermine India’s government.

Not all of them, of course. Business Standard and Mint don’t carry edits on Saturdays, The Telegraph likes to take things easy over the weekend, and The Hindustan Times worries over what the neighbours will say. The Times of India perhaps couldn’t be bothered.

But the Pioneer, The Hindu, Indian Express, the Economic Times, to name just the big ones, all had a go.

The Pioneer complimented Rahul Gandhi “for being brutally honest.” But then it veered off into a laboured defence of the BJP. “When the Government came under attack on the issue, its spin doctors began to spread the canard that the Bharatiya Janata Party had been taken on board over the provisions of the ordinance.” It did not deny this. Instead, it harped on the BJP’s opposition to it. Ha!

The Hindu, despite its Editor being away in Washington with the PM (or perhaps because of that) was quick off the mark. That it was a quickie is evident from the fact that the first paragraph merely reiterated the events, and took up 215 of the words in the edit.

The second para was better. The paper chastised Rahul for playing both ends of the game. “He cannot be both Congress vice-president and a rebel with unlimited licence to attack. If he thought the ordinance was “nonsense,” he should have spoken his mind at the outset, while it was still in the form of a bill in the Rajya Sabha…If the Congress vice-president’s outburst was meant to show he’s the boss, he could have accomplished the mission with greater grace.”

Absolutely right.  

The Indian Express called it Rahul Gandhi's “afternoon ambush” and was altogether more forthright. It also questioned his political maturity and said “the Manmohan Singh government had nowhere to hide.” But it made essentially the same point as The Hindu that Rahul had to stop being an outsider and insider simultaneously. “He has ranged himself against The System and taken advantage of the insulation from responsibility that such a positioning brings with it.”

Then it added an epitaph: “There can be only one conclusion: voters will get the opportunity to pronounce a verdict on this government a few months later but the Congress vice-president has already expressed his own lack of confidence in it.”

The Economic Times called is an “unbecoming outburst” described it as “irresponsible and disingenuous” and asked “if Rahul Gandhi was so aggrieved by its substance, why had he not spoken up when the bill was introduced in Parliament? 

Then it said something no else has said. “Sonia Gandhi should intervene, either to contain the damage caused by her son's tantrum or to allow Manmohan Singh to exit an office whose authority is being undermined by his own party… politics is not about impetuous interventions but about continuous, dedicated engagement. If Rahul Gandhi does not have the stomach for it, he should leave the field completely and let others do the hard grind.”