The Rahul Reboot

The inside story of how Rahul Gandhi’s Congress pulled off three stunning victories in the hindi heartland

- Kaushik Deka

In the run-up to the assembly elections in Chhattisgarh, former chief minister Ajit Jogi had a one-to-one meeting with Congress president Rahul Gandhi. Jogi, a former Congressman, was keen on returning to the fold and told Rahul: “You let me know how many seats you want to win. I will deliver. But I must have full authority to select candidates.” Rahul kept quiet for a while, took a deep breath and told Jogi with a smile: “I respect you a lot. But I’m afraid I will not be able join hands with you. I have to stand by my workers.”

Several political pundits, in and outside the party, had suggested that keeping Jogi out of the Congress coalition could be suicidal for the party as the latter had considerable influence on Scheduled Caste votes. When Jogi later formed a coalition with Mayawati’s Bahujan Samaj Party, there was almost a consensus that the Congress was yielding to the competition by allowing a split of the anti-BJP vote. Yet Rahul stood his ground and followed what his partymen and internal surveys advised him— stay away from Jogi. It’s this decisiveness that has been the hallmark of Rahul Gandhi’s electoral strategy since he took charge of the party in December 2017. From rejecting Mayawati’s demand for 50 seats in Madhya Pradesh to not yielding to the pressure of declaring a CM candidate in any of the three central Indian states, Rahul moved ahead with a specific plan, based on inputs from the ground and blended with political pragmatism.