2G verdict, Gujarat poll results represent lots of luck for Rahul Gandhi, but not enough to win the 2019 main event

The time at which Rahul Gandhi begins his stint as president of the Congress party couldn’t be better for him. His endless temple visits in Gujarat must have attracted the attention of some really powerful deity because he is beginning his term as party chief with a lot of luck. Regardless of the defeat in the numbers game in Gujarat, the state elections have been widely viewed as a victory for the Congress.

There are fewer ‘Pappu’ jokes doing the rounds these days. Most regional party heads, including BJP ally Shiv Sena in Maharashtra, are endorsing Rahul’s repackaged avatar. The Congress in the state also got a shot in the arm on Friday when the Bombay High Court set aside the sanction granted by Maharashtra governor C Vidyasagar Rao to prosecute Congress leader and former chief minister Ashok Chavan in the Adarsh housing scam case . Finally, Thursday’s CBI court verdict in the 2G spectrum scam came as a relief to the party, which it used immediately to free itself from the ignominy of being party to one of the biggest scams India has seen.

The Congress is adding more weapons to its arsenal as next year’s state polls approach, while Prime Minister Narendra Modi appears to be losing some of his favourite political talking points. At least on the criminality aspect, the special CBI court has ended the debate by acquitting all the accused. Modi, henceforth, will find it difficult to flash the 2G weapon in his political rallies with the same vigour as before. If Modi questions the court verdict, his critics will use the same statement against him in connection with the Gujarat riots case.

The luck that is with Rahul at the moment, however, will not last forever. This is probably his one big chance in his (as yet) not-so-successful political career, to claim the upper hand. Gujarat proved that Modi is no superhuman and he is indeed vulnerable to tough fights. In fact, the Congress came closing to smelling success in the Modi bastion before conceding the numbers game in the end. If Rahul builds on this momentum and brings together the Opposition, Modi will not be an invincible force in 2019.

But, for this to happen, Gandhi needs to first overhaul his own party infrastructure on the ground. Since Modi came to power in 2014, the Congress has been a demoralised group of senior leaders, aspiring leaders and clueless workers on the ground. The new Congress president needs to work closely with state leaders to identify and consolidate the strengths. Local alliances are key and herein lies the main political challenge for Rahul. For instance, befriending the Left at the Centre to tackle Modi will not be something with which the Left cadres in Kerala will be comfortable.

More careful planning and re-engineering of local units is vital. The CBI court verdict, although not a vindication of the UPA government , is a good political opportunity for Rahul to claim otherwise — something his party leaders are already doing — and question the BJP leadership for using the 2G scam as a political weapon. The BJP has fiercely used it to its advantage in the 2014 Lok Sabha election and thereafter. This line of attack will be weak from this point on. The Congress will play victim and try to convince the electorate that the BJP won the elections on an issue where no wrongdoing was carried out by the UPA government.

At least on the criminality aspect, the scam-accused have got the clean chit. But as mentioned earlier, this luck alone won’t do the trick for Rahul. A strong political narrative is missing from his style of politics so far. His political steps against Modi and the BJP have been largely reactionary. There is no fresh, convincing narrative Rahul has offered to the electorate beyond offering freebies and accusing rich industrialists of snatching wealth from the poor. To begin with, Rahul needs to chalk out a credible economic agenda for the country. He calls demonetisation and GST twin torpedoes that hit the economy, but he is silent on clear solutions to curb the black economy or offer a better GST structure — the twin objectives Modi attempted to achieve.

If one leaves out the rhetoric and social media barbs at Modi, Rahul is yet to have a clear-cut and prudent economic roadmap to counter the government’s economic policy failures and shortcomings. Next, Rahul will have to prepare for questions on his approach to contentious issues — majority/minority balance, caste politics — where answers are tricky. His temple run in Gujarat and proclamation of being a ‘sacred thread-wearing Hindu’ weren’t convincing enough to the informed voters. If Rahul does the right things at the right time, with luck on his side, the new Congress president can reverse the course of his party from near-collapse back to its glory days.