Some time back we had reported how the Indian media regularly goes into a frenzy to speculate as to whether Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi has come of age.
“Coming of age” colloquially means that a person has transcended from childhood to adulthood, which sounds a bit odd when used in the context of a 47 year old man. This though hasn’t stopped the media, and from 2009 to 2015 it has used this phrase several times to describe Rahul Gandhi.
Now it seems that the media is going on the same route to dish out speculations about the imminent elevation of Rahul Gandhi as the Congress President, a post which is currently held by his mother Sonia Gandhi.
In the year 2014, the Congress party registered an abysmal Lok Sabha performance by winning just 44 seats, which led many to speculate whether the party was soon going to face an existential crisis.
Maybe as a possible defence mechanism against this prospect, the media started getting flooded by reports about Rahul Gandhi being imminently elevated as the Congress President. This possibly meant that Rahul Gandhi getting total control was pegged as the solution to all the party’s problems which by all accounts might simply be designed to shield the Congress well-wishers from the harsh reality.
A twitter user named @moronhumor as a result chronicled the number of times the media has claimed the same. Here are a few such instances:
- Back in January 2014 NDTV had speculated about the options in-front of Rahul Gandhi like becoming the working president or the PM candidate
- In January 2015 India TV claimed that Rahul Gandhi can become the Congress president by March-April of that month
- In February 2015 NDTV’s Nidhi Razdan claimed that her channel has learnt that Rahul Gandhi would be taking over form Sonia Gandhi in April
- APN news in January 2016 decided to continue this tradition by claiming that Rahul Gandhi may be made the Congress President
- In June 2017 Nidhi Razdan again reported that decks were cleared by the Congress working committee to make Rahul Gandhi to take over.
- In August Republic TV claimed that Rahul would be elevated to the top job this October.
- In October India Today came out with a report quoting Sachin Pilot claiming that Rahul would take over the party after Diwali.
- In November NewsX claimed that Rahul would now become the President in the 1st week of December.
Now latest reports claim that the Congress working committee has passed a resolution to make Rahul Gandhi the party president and in case there is no other candidate, the party would announce his candidature on the last date of scrutiny.
This video by @moronhumor raises questions about the source and accuracy of the news reported by the media. It also might pave the way to an alternative theory that so many reports saying the same thing might mean that there is a concrete effort in the party to make Rahul Gandhi the president but it for some reason hasn’t materialised.
Does it mean that there is a faction within the party which has actively opposed Rahul’s elevation or whether Rahul himself has refused to take over fearing that he may be held accountable for his party’s failures.
Check out the whole video of @moronhumour below:
Wish life gave everyone as many chances to reach the top, as it gives Rahul Gandhi every other month to become the Congress President !! Watch how many .. pic.twitter.com/v4U0zwODNV
— Yo Yo Funny Singh (@moronhumor) November 19, 2017
