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Leader of Opposition in Lok Sabha Rahul Gandhi, who had faced scrutiny for his conduct of not hitting the ground from his opposition has now changed the perception about him with his active protest and party leaders now finding him more often on streets raising issues along with the opposition leaders.
Many senior leaders in the party are amazed by the way the former Congress president has changed the narrative about him from being called an absentee politician to being one who is now street smart and also standing shoulder to shoulder with the people.
On Wednesday evening, Rahul Gandhi, along with his sister and Wayanad MP Priyanka Gandhi Vadra, joined the protest at India Gate to support Ankita Bhandari’s parents, who were seeking justice for their daughter.
He came there along with Priyanka and soon phones of many Congress leaders started buzzing with many frontal organisation heads on the ground; several others too joined the protest immediately.
Ever since Rahul Gandhi gave the hint of surprise street politics on party chief Mallikarjun Kharge’s birthday on July 21, when he had sat in protest outside the Prime Minister’s residence, along with his sister, the party chief and General Secretary (Organisation) KC Venugopal, the party leaders and MPs are now not only on their toes, but also the leaders from the INDIA bloc are ready to join immediately.
Even when the Congress, along with the INDIA bloc, decided to march from the Parliament to the Election Commission office, it was easily accepted. A party source said that Rahul Gandhi is now keeping some of his trusted aides in the loop to share the surprise plan with others through calls and WhatsApp messages.
The source pointed out that the party is also keeping a close tab on its MPs, checking who all are joining the protest in the national capital, thus ensuring attendance from Congress as well as all the INDIA bloc leaders, which was visible on Monday.
The march to the Supreme Court was joined by Akhilesh Yadav, Supriya Sule, Sanjay Raut, NK Premachandran, D Raja and many others.
The party also floated the idea to rope in the civil society and student activist groups from other parties to take on the BJP-led government and Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) Gyanesh Kumar over the issue of vote theft and SIR exercise
The INDIA bloc had decided to hold a protest march on September 30 in the wake of a media report showing internal rift within the Election Commission of India over the Special Intensive Revision (SIR), which the Congress believes reinforces its claims of “vote chori”.
A party functionary, who has been part of several protests, without being named said that the core team of Rahul Gandhi, including Priyanka Gandhi, Srivatsa, Alankar Sawai, KB Byju, Venugopal and Manish Sharma have been playing an instrumental role in making the communication and ensuring the plan is foolproof.
He said that while Alankar, Srivatsa, Byju, the backroom strategists of Rahul Gandhi, who handle his programmes, are also given the new task of passing on the information and his plans to Venugopal, who then uses the same to communicate with the other parties and party MPs.
When many of the party MPs skipped the protest march on day one and two, they were identified and were asked to be present in the other protests planned for another day.
The source said that Rahul Gandhi also asked Venugopal for a list of MPs who attended the protests, and those who did not.
The source said that when MPs came to know that the Gandhi scion was himself keeping a tab on their presence on the ground, many arrived in the national capital to join the march from Parliament to the Rashtrapati Bhawan.
Ahead of Monday’s march to the Supreme Court, the communication was firmer, they were told that they need to be present in the national capital and ensure that they join the march from Barakhamba Road to the Supreme Court.