How Rahul Gandhi and Congress messed up the agendas of Bharat Jodo Yatra

Have you ever wondered why the Indian National Congress would choose BJY (Bharat Jodo Yatra) as the moniker for its 100th “relaunch” of Rahul Gandhi? Especially given that just one alphabet separates BJY from BJP? Rather unsurprisingly at the peak of the yatra’s progress, state election results bestowed a whopping majority on the BJP in Gujarat, a state where Rahul had campaigned, but also gave the INC a majority in Himachal Pradesh where Rahul had not campaigned at all - giving it a last minute miss. Amongst the BJP there seems to be absolutely no fear though the rank and file of the BJP have been enthused no end into finding more and more gaffes for their mythical “IT Cell” to use as fodder. Now it is quite normal for the opposing party to be unconcerned in public but weary in private, yet the body language of the BJP workers seems totally relaxed. Hubris? Maybe, maybe not. It is however worth exploring everything that has gone wrong with the BJY that leads to the BJP’s casual dismissal of any “impact” it may have. Focus on Rahul As far as the BJP goes, Rahul is the gift that keeps giving and they genuinely see him as an ally. Rahul’s personal isolation from social media or indeed the media, means he probably doesn’t know this, but every time Modi or the BJP get into soup over something, Rahul ends up saying something that gets a much stronger reaction and diverting the BJP voter’s ire - in much the same way as a modern combat aircraft releases flares to divert heat seeking missiles. And so it was with BJY. The problem is that he is a flare who diverts attention from the main target, but in his head, he is a combat aircraft. Yet again instead of coursing in the issue, Rahul, the BJY twitter handle and party spokespersons keep focussing on Rahul the weakest link in the chain and ignoring the issues. Had he stuck to talking about issues he could have put the BJP on the back foot, but then he makes everything about himself. The rally quite nobly started off with the lofty intention to “heal divisions in society” and focus on “unemployment & inflation” and the “over-centralisation of our political system”. Now you would expect their own twitter handle to focus on these issues right? Wrong! 90 per cent of the tweets they put out are images of Rahul Gandhi, with an “over-centralisation of politics’’ onto just one individual. Clearly, it’s a bit rich to talk against over-centralisation when your own twitter handle only talks about you and ignores the Congress President and all the other leaders taking part. This is all the more jarring when you consider the fact that Rahul is merely just one of 52 MPs of the party. Consider this: Rahul was asked “what lessons has Rahul Gandhi learnt from talking to the people?”. His answer wasn’t about his learnings from the people but about himself “I left Rahul Gandhi behind several years back”. The frustrated reporter reiterates “sir my question is through this mass connect programme…” and Rahul cuts him off and says “Rahul Gandhi is in your mind, he is not in my mind, understand what I’m saying…see one guy at the back is clapping, he has understood, you should also understand this, this is your country’s philosophy”. Now when he is asked a serious question about the issues he wants to raise he not just makes it about himself he also makes fun of it. When asked about his white T-shirt he then asks reporters “has the BJP sent you?”and insinuations to the effect that a purchased press won’t report about the issues he raises. Effectively talk about issues, he talks about himself, if you talk about him and he says you’re a BJP agent. Then by his own metric since he mostly talks about himself, he himself must be a BJP agent? What about the party spokespersons tweeting about the brotherly love for his sister and attributing the qualities of Maharishis to him for wearing a white T-shirt in cold weather? Are they also BJP agents? Similarly, he claims this is a people connect programme. Yet, he keeps asking for media attention and accuses the media of covering up his astounding successes. Now you can either have a PR programme or you can have a mass connect programme. In his high security category you simply can’t have both. Consider this: Rajashekhar Reddy through his low PR mass connect programmes, traversed the entire expanse of undivided Andhra. This was done with 20-30 people at most going from village to village without the need for publicity or TV cameras. The people endorsed this and he won a resounding victory. In Rahul’s position, a high security ring around him, will necessarily preclude any serious mass contact. Let’s be clear, a true Yeduguri Sandinti Rajasekhara Reddy(YSR) style mass connect yatra isn’t what Rahul is doing. He’s taking a PR roadshow - a travelling circus - a penny dreadful freak show of B grade celebrities, well past their prime. It’s a bit rich to say you “know the minds of the people” when you’re walking with washouts like Mona Ambegaonkar, Amol Palekar, Riya Sen, Sushant Singh, Swara Bhaskar who were never serious commercial successes, been unemployed for years,?and have never stood for or won elections. The one A Lister who came - Kamal Hasan has always been a distant second to RajniKant in Tamil Nadu, quite an achievement given that Rajni himself isn’t Tamil but a Marathi while Kamal is Tamil. Moreover given that every one of Kamal’s movies have been resounding flops for the last few years he truly qualifies as a washed out whose “political party” is a joke.. Yet we’re meant to believe these people are “connected to the ground”. Conclusion You can see why everybody seems confused given the contradictions in Rahul’s own mind. India is a good news society where negative messaging just doesn’t work. People need hope and positivity. The messaging itself didn’t fit the bill to begin with, but given that Rahul and his sycophants have made this about him and his antics, what little hope this yatra had has also turned to ashes. But then is Rahul confused? Or did his PR machinery succeed in confusing us? Ultimately this seems to be one more of Rahul’s self obsessed game for one, where he is actor, director, producer, music composer and playback singer. The writer is a senior fellow at the Institute of Peace and Conflict Studies. The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not represent the stand of this publication. Read all the  Latest News ,  Trending News ,  Cricket News ,  Bollywood News , India News  and  Entertainment News  here. Follow us on  Facebook ,  Twitter  and  Instagram .