If this is ‘Rahul kaalam’, is ‘Vadra-gandam’ up next?

Robert Vadra is a passionate biker, and there are countless anecdotal accounts of his fondness for vrooming around Delhi’s leafy avenues on a zippy motorbike. But yesterday, in a brief interaction with the media, Sonia Gandhi’s son-in-law and Priyanka Gandhi’s husband revealed himself to nurse a secret ambition to be a ‘parachute politician’: someone who descends from on high and air-drops into the political arena merely on the strength of his place in the First Family of Indian politics. In comments that are already beginning to give Congress leaders much disquiet, Vadra, who is campaigning for the Congress in Uttar Pradesh, told reporters that if people so desired, “I can come into politics.” With the breezy cheeriness of the Privileged One who charts out the timeline of India’s political destiny, Vadra said: “Abhi Rahul ka time chal raha hai, phir Priyanka ka time aayega, phir parivar ke doosre…” (“This is Rahul Gandhi’s time. After that will come Priyanka Gandhi’s time - and also of other family members.”) [caption id=“attachment_205341” align=“alignright” width=“380” caption=“Robert Vadra, the biker and the parachute politician. PTI”]  [/caption] In other words, if this is, in astrological parlance, ‘Rahul kaalam’, as _Firstpost_ observed here , ‘Vadra gandam’ isn’t too far behind. At a time when Rahul Gandhi has been making light of his prime ministerial ambitions and Priyanka too has laughingly spoken of herself as a barsati maindak (a frog that croaks only at monsoon time, to mean that she surfaces only at election time), Vadra’s articulation of a political role for himself – only if the people so desired, of course – has set off a thunderous roar, much like the rip of a 1500 cc bike on an open highway. At a time when the Congress is walking on tiptoes to avoid drawing unflattering attention to the dynastic line of succession being drawn up for Rahul Gandhi, Vadra’s full-throttle acknowledgement of plans for the “dynasty-in-law” has caused the party profound embarrassment. Priyanka herself dismissed Vadra’s comments as perhaps the outcome of the media’s mangling, misinterpretation ad misquoting. “Look, you (media) must have asked him a twisted question and then misinterpreted the answer. Robertji is very happy and satisfied doing his business,” she said. But other Congress leaders are borderline apoplectic about Vadra’s unsubtle articulation of a political ambition. The Telegraph likened “Raabert’s” comment to a “Lilly, don’t be silly” moment for the Congress. It reports: “Aghast Congress leaders and activists viewed Robert’s answer as an ‘unsolicited intervention’ in the electoral discourse of Uttar Pradesh at a time (when) Priyanka took exceptional care to ensure that she didn’t undermine Rahul’s prominence in any manner.” The newspaper quoted an unidentified Congress leader as saying: “He (Robert) almost announced the decision to disinvest in Rahul. He also crudely admitted the top slot is reserved for the family members.” An angry Uttar Pradesh leader told The Telegraph on the phone: “Soniaji should ask him to shut up.” Even the normally voluble Congress spokesperson Abhishek Manu Singhvi, who has a ready answer to every hypothetical question thrown at him, was extraordinarily reluctant to discuss Vadra’s injection of himself into the political arena. The reason for Congress leaders’ wariness is obvious: they believe that at a time when they are already on the back foot in defending a dynastic succession, the extension of that line to suggest that one more member of the First Family is waiting in the wings would not go down well. Vadra’s thunderous entry into the campaign fray – he took out a motorbike rally yesterday – has already kicked up a controversy. On Monday, Pawan Sen, an IAS officer on election observer duty in Uttar Pradesh, stopped Vadra’s motorbike rally in Amethi because it violated an election rule that limited the number of vehicles that could be inducted into election campaigning. When it emerged that Sen had subsequently been transferred to Goa, which too is due to for Assembly elections, it was immediately seen as punitive transfer for having dared to stop Vadra, the extra-constitutional authority who enjoys other privileges. Chief Election Commissioner SY Quraishi subsequently claimed that Sen’s transfer was not linked to the incident. He told PTI: “Today’s incident is unrelated to the observer’s transfer.” The Election Commission, he added, had on Monday morning decided that Sen would be posted as Deputy Commissioner in South Goa, where the current election official, who was earlier the Chief Minister’s Principal Secretary, had faced complaints from various political parties. Quarishi added that the Election Commision had taken the decision to transfer Sen on Monday morning, wheras the incident involving Vadra happened in the evening. But since the transfer had acquired political overtones, the Election Commission had, “to avoid misinterpretation by some mischievous people” kept Sen’s transfer on hold until after his election observer duty is completed on 19 February, Quairishi added. Thus ended a day that marked for Vadra quite an inauspicious entry into the rough and tumble of politics. It also perhaps offers a sobering lesson in the laws of dynastic politics: while it may provide opportunities for ‘parachute politicians’ like Vadra to drop from the heavens into the thick of the action, it also sets them up for excessive media and official scrutiny, which amplifies even their feeblest failings.