GUSH.
That's what collective relief sounds like.
As the Congress falls over itself to praise their yuvraj's maiden speech to 16th Lok Sabha to the moon, their over-the-top enthusiasm only proves how relieved they are that their heir apparent did not trip over himself and go down the rhetorical rabbit hole of some abstruse metaphor.
"I was confident he would speak well," Sonia Gandhi tells reporters later. That's, of course, the relief of 20-20 hindsight.
In fact, the entire party sounds like the happy and relieved mother whose son finally passed an elocution exam without flubbing.
Congress vice president Rahul Gandhi. PTI
The hyperventilation on all sides is especially astounding given that the man has been an MP since 2004. That ten years after his parliamentary debut, Rahul Gandhi's speech in the Lok Sabha merits so much discussion, bears testimony not to the man's mesmerising oratorical skills but to how little he has spoken in parliament. And how little of what he has said has been memorable.
Every speech, thus, becomes an event as if it is the advent of the talkies, part of the endless project of 'Rebooting Rahul Gandhi'.
What was clear from the style of his speech was that after a long time, Rahul Gandhi seemed to be enjoying the jab and thrust of parliamentary politics. It's immaterial whether suit-boot ki sarkar is a fair jibe or whether Robert Vadra's brother-in-law, despite his own permanently rumpled kurta-pajama, should have the gumption to make snide remarks about big business cronyism. The success of a phrase is whether it can enter popular parlance ala news traders, presstitutes, ma bete ki sarkar. And suit-boot ki sarkar is certainly a marked improvement upon escape velocity. It stings and the reaction to it shows that.
In its ideal world, the Congress would have a leader who delivered zingers all the time. In its ideal world, the Congress would have a leader who was leading the charge when the budget was being discussed and not holed away in some undisclosed location. In its ideal world, the Congress would have a leader who routinely took the battle to the PM the way Rahul did on Monday. But the Congress has to make do with a less than ideal world these days. So, it goes into ecstasy over any inkling that its vice president is at all enthusiastic about his family profession and showing half-a-flair for it.
But the sound of gush extended beyond Congress ranks. Rahul's return from the wilderness or wherever he went has also come at a time when Arvind Kejriwal has lost much of his sheen with the anti-Modi brigade. He has not turned out to be quite the knight in shining armour they had hoped for and the internal feuds ripping AAP apart have brought about their own dose of disillusionment. That's probably why Rahul has been embraced with such palpable relief by those anti-Modi forces. Otherwise, they were stuck between unhappy choices of an increasingly autocratic my-way-or-highway Arvind Kejriwal or the dismal spectacle of the tired Janata – The Sequel which is much more Grumpy Old Men than Fast & Furious. Their excitement about the new and improved Rahul suggests a hope that maybe, just maybe, Rahul Gandhi got a personality transplant during his sabbatical that's actually going to take root instead of being hair today and gone tomorrow.
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The BJP too has played into the Congress' hands by its all-guns attack on Rahul's speech. In its eagerness to outgun him, they have actually added to the hype of what should have been a routine speech by a prominent Opposition leader. The more the treasury benches screamed and shouted about his sojourn and Bofors to throw him off balance, the more Rahul knew he was connecting. And he slyly brought up the infamous monogrammed suit without actually belabouring the point – a verbal trick of mockery worthy of Modi himself. Connecting is Narendra Modi's great forte. Rahul has always been more miss than hit in that department. The BJP, in its own over-the-top reaction, gave Rahul a hit this time. The BJP members harangued Rahul when he started his speech in English saying the farmers would not understand. But his audience there was not really the kisans. That was the rally from last week. His target in the Lok Sabha was not about wooing farmers but about riling the BJP. And the BJP helped him succeed.
But one swallow does not a summer make. The Congress' jubilation has to be tempered by the fact that Rahul's flashes of spirit are often no more than a flash in the pan. So it should be careful about getting too excited about all those "Rahul Gandhi is back!" headlines. While he is physically back indeed, Rahul has been politically MIA for much longer than 57 days.
In fact, the Congress should be worried whether if it indeed will take 57 days of complete vanvaas and prep every time Rahul Gandhi needs to score a decent speech.
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