The Walker And The Sprinter

Different styles, different strides. Rahul Gandhi and Arvind Kejriwal, who are so unlike each other and are striving to emerge as Modi's prime challenger, have their future interlinked

- Soni Mishra

On December 8, 2013, the results of the assembly elections in Delhi were announced, and, for the Congress there was nothing to cheer about. The party ended up with just a handful of seats after having ruled the state for 15 years. The then Congress vice president, Rahul Gandhi, appeared before the media at the party headquarters, putting up a brave front; he talked about transforming the organisation. The arrival on the scene of a new political party-the Aam Aadmi Party was not lost on him.

The challenge posed by AAP leader Arvind Kejriwal was on top of Rahul's mind. It was apparent in his reaction even as he struck an optimistic note. Said Rahul, "I am going to make sure that a transformation happens, and I will do it in ways in which you cannot even imagine. We will involve people in a way you cannot even imagine. I think the AAP has involved a lot of people, which the traditional parties did not. Both the major parties [the BJP and the Congress] are thinking about politics in a traditional way in Delhi. The Congress needs to change that." If Rahul had inherited a traditional party well past its prime and struggling to reinvent itself, Kejriwal led a party that promised to do things differently.

Soon, in the Lok Sabha polls in 2014, it was apparent that the transformation in the Congress had not happened and the leadership credentials of Rahul were hit hard. The Congress registered its worst ever performance in a general election and plummeted to its least ever number of seats. On the other hand, Kejriwal got a rude reality check as his party fell flat on its face in its effort to punch way above its weight. The bureaucrat-turned-activist-turned-politician was dealt an extremely humiliating defeat by the BJP’s poster boy, Narendra Modi, in Varanasi.