New Delhi: The nation seems to be missing Rahul badly: the social media was agog in the morning with speculation about the Congress Yuvraj ensconced in the hills of Uttarkashi. The wild speculation was ignited by snaps, ostensibly released by a Congress leader, which showed him in mountain gear looking as grim as ever.
The three snaps came wrapped up in Tweet that was keen to underscore that Rahul — a son of the soil — will invariably be found with his meditative shoes and thinking cap on in the Himalayas, rather than basking in the sun on the beaches of Pattaya.
The speculation was, however, nipped in the bud by the overseas lobby that has mushroomed within the Congress after Modi’s highly successful forays abroad. These sources were adamant that Rahul is indeed abroad and Greece was the preferred destination. Any further reference to Bangkok was studiously avoided in view of the Thai city’s predominant night culture.
There is a third, slightly right-thinking group — no pun intended — within the Congress, too,which is insistent that Rahul should be allowed to take these short breaks just to keep his sanity intact in the quotidian din of Indian politics.
The party has already put out a statement that the Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi will be back in “two weeks” from his sabbatical. This section is also at pains to assert that the young leader who is tipped to take over the party’s reins as its president is not ‘sulking.’
But all said and done Rahul’s Houdini act has set tongues wagging in the ‘Band, Baja Baraat’ Punjabi lobby within the Congress. So, the official stand — that Rahul needs time to think about key issues — is being seriously interpreted by the matrimonial pack as Rahul’s desire to examine his ‘disinterest’ in marriage and find ‘suitable’ answers to his existentialist dilemma. And that includes a lack of desire to perpetuate the Congress dynasty. This section within the party would like nothing better than if Rahul were to marry and a brood is playing in the Gandhi backyard sometime in future. On all this and more, the official line is: “Whatever we had to say on this subject has been already communicated to you. We do not want to add anything to it.”
There is also a ‘salvation’ lobby within the party which believes that Rahul is mixed up in the ‘wrong’ crowd and his bruised soul, parched by the sins of omission and commission of the Congress party, badly needs spiritual rehab. Once Rahul’s wrinkled soul goes through a thorough cleansing, he can return, smile like a Cheshire cat and that would surely blot out the party’s sins.
But in all seriousness, with the Modi government feeling boxed in both inside Parliament and outside it, Rahul’s absence, particularly in the light of the fact that the Congress had planned a public protest on the Land Bill today, is being questioned. He was supposed to lead this protest, and the Congress spokesperson was at a loss on Tuesday to give the names of the leaders who would be present at this protest now. Ironically, it was Rahul Gandhi who had actually taken up the cause for a fair compensation to the farmers whose land is to be acquired. This, in turn, had led to the original Land Bill being passed by the UPA. But now the spirit behind it all is missing from this action against the BJP — yet another instance of missed opportunity.
Epilogue: It is high time the ‘sun tan’ Pattaya lobby, the deeply entrenched ‘Shubha Vivah’ pressure group and the ‘spiritual rebirth’ lobby took a break. Rahul has been spotted: he was sitting on a milestone somewhere in wilderness penning a letter. We used the latest spyware to zoom in on the missive; it said:
Dear Mother,
Lost! Wish You Were Here.
Yours ever obedient
Rahul
