The counting for the Karnataka Assembly Elections 2023 is currently underway and the early trends suggest that Congress holds the edge over rival Bharatiya Janata Party. Ecstatic with the early lead, the Congress party gave credit already to the one leader who has any right to get any credit in the party, Rahul Gandhi.
Ignoring Karnataka stalwart and state Congress President DK Shivakumar and former Chief Minister and Chairperson of state Congress committee Siddaramiah, the party’s official Twitter handle chose to promote Rahul Gandhi for the good results. Even Congress President, Karnataka’s own Mallikarjun Kharge was ignored.
Using the audio of the song ‘Unstoppable’ by Sia over visuals of Rahul Gandhi, the official Congress handle wrote- I’m invincible, I’m so confident Yeah, I’m unstoppable today.
I'm invincible
— Congress (@INCIndia) May 13, 2023
I'm so confident
Yeah, I'm unstoppable today 🔥 pic.twitter.com/WCfUqpNoIl
Interestingly, the first thought of the party after getting news about the good performance was not to thank the local leaders who worked hard on the ground, or even the voters for showing faith in the party, but to again credit the scion of the Gandhi-Nehru family.
In an election where the Congress party focused on micromanaging at the ground level and fought on local Karnataka issues, one would have expected that the local leaders would have got the credit first, however, that was not to be as it was once again the Gandhi family walking away with the credit.
This is hardly an aberration though, as it has been the case for well over a decade since the party started trying to launch Rahul Gandhi as a serious national option. Every defeat since then has been put on the shoulders of the local leadership, while every victory has been directly credited to Rahul Gandhi, even if he had little to do with the success, as the case in Karnataka.
Yet another relaunch and attempt to build ‘Brand Rahul’ through Karnataka results
Rahul Gandhi is the politician in India with the maximum launches. In their attempt to make Rahul Gandhi a serious contender for the PM post, the Congress party has launched him repeatedly, but with little to show for it in terms of results.
Under Rahul’s leadership, the Congress party has faced rubbings in successive Lok Sabha elections, has been wiped out of several states, and has become a bit part player in quite a few other states. However, all those poor results haven’t deterred the party from attempting another relaunch.
In fact, with the space for the opposition’s PM candidate getting crowded, Congress has started launching him with a greater frequency as it tries to remain the main opponent to BJP and PM Modi. Mamata Banerjee, Nitish Kumar, KCR, and even Arvind Kejriwal without any Lok Sabha MP have tried to position themselves as the main opponent of PM Modi. With such competition around, Congress wants to ensure that in any opposition alliance, the party’s prince gets to be the face of the alliance.
The last attempt to build “Brand Rahul” was the lengthy Bharat Jodo Yatra, for which the party even ignored elections in the crucial state of Gujarat as the top leadership was busy promoting Rahul Gandhi and his political pilgrimage across India. Expectedly, the party was almost wiped out in Gujarat, and later, went on to lose in North Eastern states as well, a region where Congress used to rule not so far back.
However, as expected, Rahul Gandhi’s leadership did not even get a mention, forget getting any blame, for those poor performances. But now, when Congress is looking set to be the largest party in Karnataka, and should even get a simple majority on its own, the party has put Rahul Gandhi back in focus so that he can get the credit for the win.
Will the credit for Karnataka’s win finally help Rahul Gandhi emerge as a viable option during next year’s Lok Sabha elections or will we see yet another relaunch of the Prince, we will wait and find out.
