I somehow
like the guy. He reminds me of Bertie Wooster and a host of other Wodehousian
characters. Affable, inane, handsome, clumsy, soft-spoken, rich beyond
expectations and rather deficient in the cerebrum. He has a sort of a magnetism
about him that attracts barbs from all sides. Everybody likes to take pot-shots
at him. And he’s so timid that he can’t hit back; or if he does, he ends up
putting both his feet firmly in his mouth. A gentleman of leisure, who would
have been at home losing millions in Casinos with equanimity or having his
pants removed by scheming bimbos in some exotic locales...
Unfortunately
he has an ambitious mother with an Italian Mafiosi lineage, who will not rest
till her darling son is crowned as the head of the world’s largest democracy.
And that makes him a ticking time bomb whose clockwork has gone kaput. There is
no telling when he’ll explode; or where. There is also no telling how
devastating the explosion will be or how many he’ll take down under with him.
And that makes him dangerous. Really dangerous.
I’m
speaking about the most eligible bachelor of India – Raul Vinci, also known as
Rahul Gandhi aka RaGa, the scion of the Nehru dynasty, who at 45 still looks as
if he’s still in his twenties and has the brains of a ten-year-old.
Nobody
knows what he has studied. His resume informs that he joined St Stephen’s,
Delhi, but dropped out in the very first year. Then he claims to have shifted
to the venerated Harvard University (possibly the first drop-out to get a seat
in the hallowed institution). But again he dropped out. He’s said to have
graduated (BA) from Rollins College in England in 1994 and then obtained his
MPhil in 1995 from Trinity College, Cambridge. How he got his MPhil in under a
year and that too without the benefit of a post graduate degree is again
anybody’s guess.
He was made
the Vice President of the Indian National Congress in 2013. After having
masterminded the defeat of the Congress Party in the Parliamentary elections
last year, he also strategised the defeat of the party in Maharashtra, Jammu
& Kashmir, Jharkhand, Haryana and Delhi in under a year. It was obviously a
case of mistaken identity. He mistook the congress (his own party) for the BJP!
This is clear from the fact that Rahul, even when the Congress was still ruling
over Maharashtra, had referred to it as a BJP state! He had also referred to
Karnataka, where a congressman, Siddaramiah is in the saddle, as a BJP governed
state. We’ll have to wait a few more months to find out whether Rahul’s clairvoyance
will reach Nostrodamic proportions.
After this
enviable string of losses, as the nation geared up for the first full scale
national budget of the Narendra Modi government and as the Congress party’s
token representation in Parliament readied itself to tear into the BJP, Rahul
did an impeccable vanishing act, which would have done a Houdini proud. He was
there all over the TV and newspapers; and then, suddenly he was not there. No
one knew where he had gone (for security reasons, obviously). No one knows when
he will be back (again for security reasons). Wags in the ruling BJP hinted
that Rahul, after his string of defeats would hang up his boots. But the
Congress’ damage controllers clarified that RaGa was “not quitting politics”.
Obviously he was made of sterner stuff than most believed. They further elucidated
that he had gone on a “sabbatical”. What was more, he had even “obtained leave
of absence” from Parliament! They insisted that RaGa would soon be back and
that he would, on his return, take up a more prominent role in the Congress.
Considering
that he was already Congress Vice President, and the only post above this was
that of the Congress President, a post held by his ailing but ambitious mother,
the hint was that Rahul on his return to active politics would take over the
mantle of his mother as party chief.
This news
has brought a lot of cheer. Not to the struggling Congress cadres, who are
actually shell-shocked. For them, Rahul taking over the reins of the party is the
equivalent flying in an Air India flight piloted by a Japanese Kamikaze pilot ready for harakiri. He is not worldly or materialistic like
them. While they tend to sulk in defeat, trying to hide their faces in shame,
Congressmen know that he has attained such a high degree of political nirvana
that he can smile at defeat without the least bit of remorse.
He’s a guy,
who when asked about what the Congress proposes to do about black money, could
glibly say that the bogey of black money had been raised by Ramdev to chase him
out of politics!
He’s a guy
who could stump even the redoubtable Arnab Goswami by lecturing to him at
length about the need for empowerment of women in the country when asked for his
comments on Narendra Modi and the Gujarat riots.
He’s a guy
who could crucify the Congress party’s organisational structure and style of
functioning, conveniently forgetting that for the last 60 years, the party has
been in the vice-like grip of his family members – his great granddad
Jawaharlal Nehru, his grandma Indira Gandhi, his dad Rajiv Gandhi, his mama-mia
Sonia Gandhi and very soon himself.
He is made
of different stuff altogether from the run-of-the-mill congressmen. No wonder
the congressmen are dreading the day he will return to centre stage to take
over the reins of the party. On the other hand, the BJP, the AAP and all
parties not so friendly with the Congress, are happy. With the Rahul era coming
in, they feel, it would be sunset time for the grand old party.
But will Raul
Vinci have the last laugh? Time alone will tell what really lays in store. That
is the greatness of the democracy that is India!!!
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