The road ahead for Rahul Gandhi after May 2

File image: Priyanka Gandhi Vadra (left), Rahul Gandhi (centre) and Sonia Gandhi. (Image: PTI)

Kerala saved the Congress, and its leader Rahul Gandhi, who was at the time party president, considerable embarrassment in the 2019 Lok Sabha polls. Two years since, as Kerala queues up to vote on April 6 to elect a fresh assembly, Gandhi and his lieutenants would hope for a repeat.

As in 2019, so now, Gandhi and his band of advisers have staked much on the party’s performance in Kerala. But unlike 2019, there could be disappointment in store for Gandhi and his team. Some opinion polls predict a return of the incumbent alliance, an event unprecedented in the last 40-years in the state.

A defeat for the Congress-led United Democratic Front (UDF) at the hands of the incumbent Left Democratic Front (LDF) will strengthen Gandhi’s detractors within the Congress — the ‘group of 23’ senior leaders — triggering another round of recriminations.

In 2019, the Congress won 52 Lok Sabha seats, 15 of which were from Kerala. The people of Wayanad in Kerala also ensured Gandhi finds a seat in the Lok Sabha. Gandhi won from Wayanad but lost from his family pocket borough of Amethi, in Uttar Pradesh, which he represented for 15-years.

A Better Parliamentarian

But the supporters of Gandhi within the Congress, and outside, should thank the people of Wayanad, and of Kerala, for something more. They have accomplished in two years what Amethi could not in 15-years — made Gandhi a better parliamentarian and a more hardworking politician.

During the short tenure of the ongoing 17th Lok Sabha, Gandhi has asked 59 questions in the Question Hour in Parliament.

Gandhi’s numbers compare poorly with his 19 other colleagues from Kerala. The average for each of them is 101 questions. But his 59 questions compare favourably enough with the national average of 71 questions asked by each of the 543 MPs.

Rather starkly, as an MP representing Amethi in his first three terms — between 2004 and 2019 —Gandhi had asked a grand total of three questions, and all three in 2005. Gandhi’s attendance during Parliament sessions, and in parliamentary standing committee meetings, has also improved.

The Congress leader visits Wayanad, which is 2,500 km from Delhi, as often as once a month. His visits to Amethi, which at 700 km from Delhi, used to be infrequent.

Selective Access

In Kerala, Gandhi was told early enough that the people expected their representatives to be accessible. Gandhi, who is 50, has been seen jumping over ledges, swimming with fisherfolk, help cook biryani, address students, and even teach them aikido, a type of martial art, moves. The people of Amethi could not see this side of Gandhi.

On his part, the leader has taken to compliment the people of Kerala for being politically conscious. "I was a Member of Parliament in the north for the first 15 years therefore when I came to the south, I found it refreshing. I came to find that people in Kerala and south care about issues and not only on a superficial level but also on a deeper level,” Gandhi told a gathering in February.

Some in the Congress were left wondering what had stopped Gandhi from being more accessible to the people of Amethi all this while, and why he still doesn’t sit at least once a week, if not more, in his office at the Congress headquarters at 24, Akbar Road in New Delhi to interact with party workers.

Congress’ Future

Cut to the current round of assembly polls. Of the four states, the Congress can hope to win only two — Assam and Kerala. A win in Assam is unlikely to be credited to Gandhi, but to local Congress MP Gaurav Gogoi, party’s state unit chief Ripun Bora and Chhattisgarh Chief Minister Bhupesh Baghel, who has spent days in the state co-ordinating the campaign.

A failure in Kerala would be spun — not just by the BJP, but sections within the Congress — as a personal defeat of Gandhi and of his team. It could somewhat puncture the plans to have Gandhi back as the Congress President.

The question after May 2, the day of counting of votes of the assembly polls, will be where does Gandhi go from here? Does he become the Congress’ leader in the south, while his sister Priyanka Gandhi Vadra handles northern India? Or will he still try to be the party president even if it were to mean a split in the party?

After the 2019 Lok Sabha debacle, Rahul Gandhi told a group of friends and lieutenants that the Congress can revive only if it were to burn down to the ashes, and then rise like the proverbial phoenix. He is keen the party sheds its baggage to rediscover its ideological moorings. We shall know after May 2 the cost the Congress, and Rahul Gandhi, might be willing to pay for that.