The Budget session of Parliament began with Congress Vice-President Rahul Gandhi going on a sabbatical to introspect. With the scion likely to return to the capital this week, the grand old party is gearing up to enter a ‘Rahul era’.

Dispelling all conjecture, party insiders insist Gandhi will be donning a more “active role”, to culminate in his taking over the reins as president, maybe even as early as next month’s All India Congress Committee (AICC) session.

The road map for the Congress under Rahul is slated to shift focus to state-specific revival, highlighting of local issues and spearheading countrywide agitations on larger issues such as the ‘anti-farmer’ land acquisition law and the agrarian crisis. Close aides disclose he will be going on a countrywide padyatra to flag off issues affecting farmers and agriculturalists.

A glimpse of the ‘Rahul imprint’ has already been evident in the appointments of five state chiefs last week. With Ajay Maken being appointed Delhi Pradesh Congress Committee chief, the process of change of state leadership has begun. The generational change most seniors, especially AICC functionaries have been apprehensive of, is in the offing with a reassigning of roles for elders to a more advisory and mediator capacity. Former Union minister Jyotiraditya Scindia, another of Rahul’s ‘young guns’, while congratulating the new PCC chiefs, tweeted, “Time to regroup the Congress party from the grassroot level.”



Sources say the furore due to the timing of Rahul’s sabbatical, on the eve of the crucial Budget session, only underscored the fact that Gandhi is more focused on the party’s organisational overhauling than leading it in Parliament. In the event of Rahul taking over as president, mother Sonia Gandhi (president since 1998, the longest such tenure) will continue to be the parliamentary party incharge, insist senior leaders. So even when the controversial Land Acquisition Ordinance is tabled in the Lok Sabha on Monday, Rahul will not be back, leaving it to more experienced MPs like Mallikarjun Kharge to take up the fight.

Close aides say Rahul’s three-pronged approach which includes empowering state units and taking up local issues, has been witnessed in Rajasthan. Sachin Pilot the new PCC chief, considered close to Rahul, took up the issue of change of the land acquisition laws in the state. The agitation by the state unit was reinforced with active participation of the Youth Congress and its recently appointed chief, Raja Warring (handpicked by Rahul.) The younger Gandhi believes such demonstrations will help the organisation get back its ‘grassroot connect’ with the masses.

The ‘Rahul era’, an organisational insider explains, will translate into “a change of working style.” Unlike his mother, he believes in empowering the state leadership, giving a free hand to “real leaders” but demanding accountability, i.e electoral performance. So, despite Bhupinder Singh Hooda being a mass leader, the poor results in the Haryana Assembly polls sealed his fate.

While it is certain Rahul will be president, a young leader says, “Instead of being appointed, he would prefer to be elected by the highest decision making body of the party, the Congress Working Committee.”



Fending off criticism about Rahul’s hands-off approach to leadership, a senior (considered close to the family) states emphatically, “Rahul has always believed in stepping back and letting party workers take centre stage, hearing them out and involving them in decision making, empowering the blocks and district committees. He believes as long as we (Congress) continue to delay this, we will not get back to power anytime soon.”Adding: “It is natural that experienced stalwarts of the party, no longer in sync with the changing dynamics of state politics, be accommodated in roles of mediator or observer.”Despite the clamour for kneejerk reactions to a series of electoral reverses, beginning with the May 2014 debacle, the party high command has taken its time to rejig the existing set-up. Says a leader, “Remember, the grand old party is like an elephant, it’s not a prancing horse. It takes time to turn.”Decision making at 24, Akbar Road (AICC headquarters) till now was solely decided by 10, Janpath (Sonia Gandhi’s residence). That looks set to change when Rahul takes over at the helm. For, Rahul believes, says a party insider, in expanding the base of decision making, not concentrating it in the hands of one leader. Whether this attempt at democratisation in a party as old as the Congress will succeed in reaping electoral dividends anytime soon or be a challenge for the long term will be the test.

WINDS OF CHANGE