Rahul shares stage with Ashok Chavan: Sign of things to come?

It was an odd sight, Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi who shot down the Maharashtra government’s decision to disown and reject an enquiry commission report in the Adarsh scam, seated on stage with former chief minister of Maharashtra Ashok Chavan, still in the political doldrums with the shadow of the Adarsh scam stubbornly over him.

The two shared the stage at a rally in Aurangabad, Maharashtra, on Wednesday. At one point of time, Chavan also walked up to Rahul and the two shook hands, smiling, as Maharashtra Congress chief Manikrao Thakre and Chief Minister Prithviraj Chavan looked on awkwardly.

Possibly, it was one of those moments when Rahul Gandhi, who often appears to have fixed his gaze somewhere in the not-so-immediate future long after the 2014 election is gone, suddenly had a bout of realism.

Thakre has been for some months now making it apparent that the Congress, fighting a double anti-incumbency in Maharashtra, desperately needs Ashok Chavan’s skills as a campaigner, deal-maker and election strategist. Several sections of the state Congress even pitched for a Lok Sabha election ticket for the former chief minister, while he himself appeared keen that his wife (some reports indicated his brother-in-law was in the reckoning too) be given a Congress ticket from Nanded, his home constituency.

Rahul had earlier publicly rebuked the state gvernment for rejecting the Adarsh enquiry commission report, but that was clearly not on his mind in Aurangabad, the big urban hub of the Marathwada region that has given Maharashtra a series of chief ministers including Ashok Chavan.

“Congress sources said the public appearance of Chavan with Rahul signaled the party’s decision to forget Adarsh scam ahead of the elections,” said a report in The Indian Express.

Chavan’s political rehabilitation is inevitable. The Maharashtra Pradesh Congress Committee is beseiged with complaints of the party favouring newcomers (from ministers like Narayan Rane to MPs like Sanjay Nirupam) over original Congressmen, the lack of respect to Maharashtrians (not one of Mumbai’s five Congress MPs is a native of the state) and over the vacant posts that mid-level Congress leaders aspire to, including to the executive bodies of state-run corporations, special executive officers, etc.

In addition, with the demise of Vilasrao Deshmukh, the Congress sorely lacks a pan-Maharashtra leader with charisma and a large mass base who can address rallies in Marathi. Thakre is himself a member of the state legislature’s upper house, and so is Prithviraj Chavan, who was earlier a Rajya Sabha member and has no traditional mass support base even in his home constituency in Satara.

“The Congress is following its usual practice. We are not surprised that it is trying to rehabilitate Ashok Chavan. Now it might try to do the same with Suresh Kalmadi,” BJP’s state spokesperson Madhav Bhandari was quoted as saying in The Economic Times .

It was not only the opposition that jumped at the opportunity. The Congress appears to be coming to terms with the fact that it cannot just wish away Ashok Chavan, still a highly winnable candidate for both the Lok Sabha election and the Assembly election that will follow later this year. NCP leaders too expressed surprise that Ashok Chavan was hosted on the same stage as Rahul Gandhi.

But senior Congress leaders have already been discussing the problem of “perception management” – simply put, some deft image management to airbrush some unsavoury specks. The Congress list of candidates is not  out yet, but when it does emerge, nobody will be surprised if Rahul’s six anti-corruption bills were long forgotten and  the kin of some tainted leaders are given party tickets to contest the 2014 Lok Sabha election.