Write off Congress, Rahul at your own risk, history is on their side

Rahul Gandhi does not exude a lot of promise. His leadership has been uninspiring, and this could well be an understatement. Under him, the party has been losing one big state after the other. While he has diagnosed the party's weaknesses correctly, none of his efforts to set things right has yielded positive results so far.

The organisation is crumbling everywhere and the party workers remain demoralised. To compound the misery, there's a new outfit on the political block threatening to appropriate the party's support base across the country. Will his elevation as the prime ministerial candidate make the ground reality any different?

Let's put it in a more blunt way: will he be presiding over the demise of the Congress? The compulsive obsessive 'dynasty' haters –the Gandhi 'family' baiters if you please – know the answer already. Actually, they have known it since decades. They have been predicting the political end of the 'family' since the late 1960s, the period Indira Gandhi got into a bruising battle with the 'Syndicate' and established herself as a political heavyweight through the post-Narasimha Rao times when Sonia Gandhi took charge of the party.

Can Rahul Gandhi still bring the party back from the brink? PTI

However, despite their grim forecast and premature political obituaries, neither has the 'family' disappeared from the map nor has the Congress withered away. If they are busy making the same prediction all over again, good luck to them.

The perennial optimists - they are more within the Congress than outside it - see Rahul as the great hope, the man who will recreate the glory days of the party soon. They are creatures of the past and refuse to admit that the party is getting pushed to the margins in the political arena. They will not acknowledge that the Gandhi name no more draws votes and the country has moved on.

Their argument goes thus: Didn't the party revive itself in the aftermath of the Emergency in the late 70s? Didn't it reinvent itself post 1996? Didn't it learn the coalition game to return to power in 2004 and 2009? The party has weathered crises earlier and this time too it will rise to the challenge. Of course, all this will take place, as usual, under the leadership of some member of the 'family' or the other.

Now, let's get back to the first question: will Rahul make any difference to the party's fortune as the prime minister candidate – this is assuming that he would be announced as it on 17 January? Frankly, it is difficult to see how. We have discussed some of his problems in the beginning. His elevation would pit him directly against BJP's Narenda Modi, who is miles ahead in wooing people across segments. Modi has also managed to create the public perception that he is a strong leader capable of ending the climate of uncertainty in the country.

In contrast, the perception of Rahul as a leader is largely negative and he certainly has a lot of catching up to do to even come close to Modi, let alone surpass him. We still haven't discussed his lack of experience in administrative matters and visible lack of clarity on matters of national importance. Of course, as the Modi experience reveals, there is nothing that a well-organised promotional campaign cannot change.

However, the fundamental question is what message would the Congress be conveying to the electorate by making him the prime minister candidate? Just calling him young and decisive won't be enough. Probably we need to wait for the party's ad blitzkrieg and Rahul's speeches in the coming days to understand things better.

For now, let's keep our fingers crossed. Going by the record of the Congress in striking back when the chips are down, it would be premature to write off both Rahul and the party. And yes, the observers must take note; neither the 'dynasty' nor the Congress are going to wither away any time soon.