Old Voices Rejoin The Chorus

In a bid to bolster its communications strategy, the Congress is calling back party stalwarts to drum up some excitement over a possible coronation of the reluctant heir.

- Kaushik Deka

On July 18, at around 9.45 pm, the newly formed 10-member communication strategy committee of the Congress met for the second time. For 20 minutes, it deliberated if the party should attack the NDA government at the Centre for its ‘failure’ to handle the border stand-off with China. Not convinced the Congress would get enough media mileage on the issue, it was decided to leave China for debate and discussion in Parliament. Instead, party spokesperson Rajeev Gowda was to address the press and raise the matter of the Reserve Bank of India failing to complete the counting of old currency deposited post-demonetisation, between November 2016 and March 2017. Later in the day, Gowda’s press briefing was cancelled because a media interaction was organised with Gopalkrishna Gandhi, the party’s candidate for the vice-presidential elections.

Such ad hocism not only defines the Congress’s communication strategy but also reflects the present state of affairs in the party. The team was set up a day after the Congress took flak for the flip-flop over whether its vice-president, Rahul Gandhi, had met Chinese ambassador to India Luo Zhaohui amid the ongoing border face-off between Indian and Chinese troops in Doklam plateau. On July 10, when TV channels flashed that Rahul had met the envoy, Randeep Singh Surjewala, the Congress’s communications in-charge, launched a counter-attack, questioning the media’s ‘silence’ over the presence of four Union ministers in China. Though Surjewala’s tweets did not deny Rahul’s meeting with the Chinese envoy, the media read it that way. Surjewala remained incommunicado for the next three hours, attending to his father, who was undergoing surgery in Chandigarh. Later, it was Rahul who ended the speculation over his meeting by tweeting: “It is my job to be informed on critical issues.”