Rahul (7 page)

While Rahul tried to lead a regular life in England, back in India, his mother Sonia was getting deeply involved in politics. Having agreed to enter politics in 1997, she was now leading the Congress from the front. Through it all, Priyanka stood by her side, becoming her pillar of support. Within the Congress, the clamour for Priyanka to join the Party was growing. Rahul had been away from the country for over ten years now. But the political atmosphere back home indicated that it was time to return. And he did, in 2002.

India was witnessing a boom in the outsourcing industry. Western multinational corporations were turning to India to get jobs done faster and more cheaply. Rahul set up an engineering and technology outsourcing firm, Backops Services Private Ltd, in the country’s commercial nerve centre, Mumbai. The BPO venture employed just eight people and, according to its application to the Registrar of Companies, its business objectives included providing advisory support to domestic and international clients; acting as a consultant and adviser in the field of information technology; and offering web solutions. Rahul was one of its directors, along with family friend Manoj Muttu. The other two directors—Anil Thakur, the son of Congress leader and former Union minister Rameshwar Thakur, and Delhi resident Ranvir Sinha—resigned in March 2006, citing ‘personal reasons’. According to his affidavit to the Election Commission of India before the 2004 general elections, Rahul held 83 per cent of the shares in Backops Services Private Ltd. The company’s balance sheet indicated that it was a modest business venture.

Soon after Rahul entered politics in 2004, his company advertised that it was looking for a CEO. ‘We are searching for a CEO, though I hold periodic meetings with the employees and look at the larger issues,’ Rahul told the
Business Standard
in June 2004. At that time, the company had three overseas clients and by Rahul’s admission, it did not have any revenues in the first year of operation. In 2009, shortly before the Lok Sabha elections, Rahul opted out of this business venture. According to Congressmen, the demands of politics left him with little time to run the business.

There were breaks in Rahul’s career trajectory as there had been in his education. But the one thing that remained consistent was Rahul’s obsession with physical fitness and adventure sports. No matter how packed the day, he would find time to exercise. The year Rahul did a crash course in boxing, he also took lessons in paragliding.

Putting his management training to use, he took along his team of seven to eight people from Amethi to Nirvana Adventures, a flying club at Kamshet in Maharashtra. The three-day long paragliding course that lasted from 28 to 30 January 2008, also served as a team-building exercise. Situated in the Western Ghats, 85 kilometres from Pune, Kamshet was not the usual setting where a politician and his party workers would get together to discuss work. But, with Rahul’s track record of not doing what you would expect politicians to do, it wasn’t that unusual. In the midst of sunflower fields, quiet lakes and hills dotted with ancient Buddhist cave temples, the Amethi team spent the mornings taking paragliding lessons and the evenings brainstorming. Those who watched them at Kamshet said the discussions took place one-on-one. The hierarchy was visible only when the team addressed Rahul: they all called him Rahul
bhaiyya.

Before Rahul and his men landed at Kamshet, his host Astrid Rao had been very apprehensive about the high-profile politician visiting her quiet hamlet. Astrid, who founded Nirvana Adventures along with her husband Sanjay Rao, was certain the visit would disturb the peace of the area. ‘I was sure the area would be cordoned off by the tight security that would accompany Rahul,’ she said. None of that happened. ‘Without our mentioning it, Rahul ensured that nobody in uniform or with guns was seen in or around the guest house. Not once was our routine disrupted by his presence,’ Astrid said.

It was like having any other guest. The first night, the Raos cooked lamb for their visitors. A buffet was laid. ‘I was surprised to see Rahul offering plates to the others with him. He also made it a point to leave his plate in the kitchen himself,’ said Astrid. The next day, mealtime found Rahul going up to the cook to ask him if there was any lamb left over from the previous night.

Coach Bhardwaj, too, described Rahul as a man with no airs. ‘When I started training him, I addressed him as “Sir” or “Rahulji”.’ But two days into the training, Rahul made a request to his coach, ‘Please don’t call me “Sir”. Call me Rahul, I’m your student.’ On another occasion, Bhardwaj said he told Rahul that he wanted to have some water. ‘There were attendants standing nearby, but instead of calling one of them, Rahul went running into the kitchen and got me a glass of water.’ And after the lessons, Rahul would escort his teacher to the gate.

At the paragliding school in Kamshet, Rahul’s first day was spent with flight trainer Sanjay Rao who gave him ground training. Actual flight lessons were carried out on the last two days. ‘Rahul’s performance was very good. He just picked up the glider and was off,’ said Sanjay, rating Rahul among the top 10 per cent of his students. ‘He is a very attentive listener which is why he learns fast.’ Those who have observed him describe him as a man ‘who always keeps his antennae up’. During the stay, Rahul also wanted to go for a swim in the nearby lake, but his security guards advised him against it. He heeded their advice. ‘It was a pity, considering that he’s a very athletic person and likes to jog upto 10 kilometres a day,’ said Astrid.

As word got out that the young Gandhi was training at Kamshet, several local villagers turned up to meet him. Among them was an old farmer, a familiar face in the Kamshet area. The Raos introduced him to Rahul as ‘Shelar
mama
’. The farmer did a big namaskar and then, with hands that shook with age, he poured Rahul tea in a dirty cup which he had brought along. Everybody flinched. ‘But without hesitating for a second, Rahul took the cup from Shelar mama’s hands, drank the tea and then asked for another cup,’ said Astrid. That’s another trait he has inherited from his father. While campaigning in the heat of Amethi, Rajiv would willingly, and gratefully, reach out for a glass of water or sherbet offered by women waiting at the doors of their ramshackle huts for the visiting leader.

The farmer from Kamshet, who is said to have been a pearl diver once, went on to tell an attentive Rahul one story after the other about his life and travels. Other elderly men also came to meet him. They would walk up to him with hands folded in a greeting and Rahul would promptly stand up. He wouldn’t sit until they did. Those who know the young Gandhi say this is normal behaviour for him. Like his father and sister, Rahul is not comfortable being treated like a demi-god. He doesn’t like people touching his feet or standing in attendance around him. He would rather sit on the floor with them.

He is also not a man to forget a promise. Astrid discovered this a month after Rahul and his team left Kamshet. When she had taken him on a tour of her garden, Rahul had told her that his mother was also fond of gardening. He said Sonia had a particular book to which she often referred, but he could not recall its title. He promised to send it to her after he got back to Delhi. A month later, Astrid received an unexpected parcel. It was the gardening book Rahul had talked about.

Rahul doesn’t forget. Nor does he forgive. A group of journalists learnt this the hard way. On 22 January 2009, the NSUI filed a police complaint at Rahul’s behest after the notes made for his speech and presentation went missing from the venue of a convention during the lunch break. The incident took place at the Constitution Club in Delhi where a party workshop was being held. It was suspected that the papers were picked up by members of a TV crew who had entered the hall when all the others had gone for lunch. About twenty-five journalists were present at the venue. NSUI chief Hibi Eden filed a complaint at the Parliament Street police station. It is said the step was taken after Rahul insisted that the matter be reported to the police. Journalists will often go the extra mile for more information but, to him, picking up someone’s papers to get information that had not been shared constituted theft. For two days, the police called and questioned three television journalists from different channels over Rahul’s missing papers. Though members of Rahul’s team also tried to reason with him that, at the end of the day, the papers only pertained to a presentation that he was making and did not contain any secrets, he insisted on taking the journalists to task.

Within the Party, too, he is known to frown upon mistakes. ‘He will not suffer fools,’ Priyanka said in a TV interview in 2009 during the Lok Sabha elections. In December 2009, the Uttar Pradesh Congress Committee chief Rita Bahuguna Joshi created a flutter when she said that Rahul had forced his helicopter to land in conditions of zero visibility on an airstrip in UP’s Sitapur district. Rahul was on a two-day visit to UP to add steam to the Youth Congress membership drive. ‘He had promised to meet backward class people in Sitapur,’ said Joshi. ‘Rahulji is so deeply committed about keeping his promise that, despite the delay, he persuaded the pilot to land in total darkness and zero-visibility conditions, without paying any heed to the risk to his own life,’ she announced.

Joshi’s intention was to praise Rahul and perhaps win brownie points from a leader who projects himself as a representative of the poor and the backward. But the move boomeranged. Such a declaration coming barely three months after Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister Y.S. Rajasekhara Reddy had died in a helicopter crash in the Nallamala forests of Andhra Pradesh was not the kind of controversy the Congress wanted. An inquiry committee was already looking into what had caused the crash that cost the Party a popular chief minister. As an embarrassed Congress rushed to carry out damage control, Rahul told the media, ‘I am a pilot myself and am well aware of the dangers of landing in poor visibility. I am absolutely the last person to even suggest a thing like that.’ With a sheepish Joshi standing behind him, he said, ‘The UP Congress chief is neither a pilot nor a weather expert. She does not know.’

On 19 June 2011, Rahul Gandhi turned forty-one. Though he lives the busy life of a politician, he pursues his hobbies and, like his parents, looks for ways to lead an ordinary life. When her husband was still a pilot and Indira the prime minister, Sonia was often spotted buying vegetables in Delhi’s Khan Market. She loved to cook. Priyanka, too, likes to do her grocery shopping in the same market. Ranked among the world’s most expensive retail high streets, Khan Market is also Rahul’s favourite hangout in Delhi. He can be spotted having coffee at Barista or scanning through books in the shops on the outer side of the market. He also loves to spend time with his niece, Miraya, and nephew, Raihan. ‘It’s evident that he dotes on Priyanka’s children,’ said his hosts at Kamshet. During the paragliding trip, he was always talking about them and Priyanka. ‘He often said, “Priyanka must come to this place, but she is lazy,”’ said Astrid.

If a quiet evening out appeals to Rahul, so does life on the fast track. An official who worked closely with Manmohan Singh in the first term of the UPA government, said that Rahul would quietly fly to Singapore during the Grand Prix season, a high-octane affair when the city streets turn into a Formula One racing track. The days are packed with music concerts and parties.

An avid biker, Rahul also enjoys go-karting with his group of close friends. In April 2011, during a World Cup cricket match in Mumbai, Rahul landed at the New Yorker restaurant on Chowpatty beach around 1.30 in the afternoon for a meal of pizza, pasta and Mexican tostada salad. He chatted with the waiter and firmly turned down the manager’s request to let the meal be on the house. Rahul and his friends then split the bill of Rs 2,233.

To this day, at the age of forty-one, Rahul Gandhi remains a bachelor. Every now and then, there is speculation about his marriage or the women in his life. One rare occasion on which he spoke openly about it was in 2004, soon after filing his nomination papers for the Amethi constituency. In an interview to Vrinda Gopinath of the
Indian Express
, he said, ‘My girlfriend’s name is Veronique not Juanita. She is Spanish and not Venezuelan or Colombian. She is an architect, not a waitress, though I wouldn’t have had a problem with that. She is also my best friend.’ Rahul, who had met Veronique when he was at university in England, also said he wasn’t sure when he would settle down.

In the years since his first election victory, Rahul and the people around him have made no reference to his ‘best friend’, Veronique. For the Party which still faces barbs from the Opposition on grounds of Sonia’s Italian roots, even though she made this country her home more than forty years ago, this is a sensitive subject.

Five years is a reasonably long time in politics. It is—if all goes well for the incumbent government—the gap between two general elections. Since Lok Sabhas have gone back to lasting their full terms in the past decade or so, a new member of the Lok Sabha would, in five years, go from being a newbie to a second-term MP if he or she is re-elected. And some would hope to play a slightly bigger role than they did the last time around. But, with Rahul Gandhi being no ordinary MP, it was only to be expected that in the five years that lapsed between the Congress’s 82nd plenary session at Hyderabad in January 2006 and the one in December 2010 held in Delhi to mark the completion of 125 years of the Party, his growth trajectory would be steeper than that of any other young politician. The gap between the two plenaries established him as one of the most powerful general secretaries of the Indian National Congress ever. It could probably also go down as one of the most significant five-year periods in Rahul’s political journey. The proceedings of the 2010 plenary established that beyond doubt.

The Hyderabad session opened on 21 January 2006, at the GMC Balayogi Stadium at Gachibowli which had been decked up for the event. By the second week of January, the entire city of Hyderabad looked like the venue for the grand old party’s plenary. The area around the stadium was named Rajiv Nagar, temporarily, after former Congress prime minister Rajiv Gandhi. It is common practice among political parties to name the venues of their plenaries and party congresses after their leaders. The party documents and resolutions carry these names, bearing witness to the Party’s attempts to immortalize their leaders. It is at these plenaries which take place every few years that the existing leadership meets to assess the course charted by the Party, and plans for the future.

At the beginning of the Hyderabad plenary, it seemed as if the course for the future would be decided by the workers instead of by the leadership. The demand for a greater role for Rahul had reached a crescendo. On the eve of the plenary, Jitin Prasada, the young, first-time MP from Shahjahanpur (and son of a former Congress leader and vice-president Jitendra Prasada) had written to the Uttar Pradesh Congress Committee (UPCC) president Salman Khurshid that the youth of UP wanted the Amethi MP to take up a bigger role. Prasada’s letter said that he was writing on behalf of the youth of the state whose aspiration was to see Rahul play the leader in Congress affairs. He said he had travelled widely in UP since the 2004 Lok Sabha polls and come back with this feedback. Prasada’s letter obviously found its way to the press. Asked about the letter, he and Khurshid, or for that matter any other Congress leader, were only too eager to talk about the demand and stress the need for Rahul’s inclusion in the Party’s top brass.

Congressmen were shouting slogans asking for Rahul to be included in the Party’s apex decision-making body, the CWC, and bestowing upon him a ‘larger role’. Though the Congress, fresh after its surprise win of the mid-2004 general election, did not look like it needed any saving, ‘
Rahul lao, Congress bachao
(Bring Rahul Gandhi, save the Congress).’ slogans rent the air outside the precincts of the stadium. The AICC, the state committee workers and the mid-level netas jostled for airtime on channels, hoping to be seen as sloganeering to demand Rahul’s promotion to the Party’s higher echelons. Those higher in the hierarchy enthusiastically announced to the world, on television, that the time had come for gradually handing over the reins of the Congress. Party general secretary and former Madhya Pradesh chief minister Digvijaya Singh—who went on to become one of Rahul’s closest advisers from the older generation of Congress leaders—told the media that it was only a matter of time before circumstances made it necessary for Rahul to shoulder greater responsibilities for the benefit of the Party and its political future. A news report in the
Times of India
on 22 January 2006 noted:

The country needs Reformist, Accomplished, Honest, Upcoming Leadership (RAHUL)’ reads a billboard put up by the Youth Congress at a busy corner of the city. All India Congress Committee (AICC) general secretary Ambika Soni, along with central leaders Digvijaya Singh and Ashok Gehlot, has suggested that the young parliamentarian, elected from Amethi, play a more active role in the Party. Soni said delegates might raise the demand for his nomination to the CWC.

A report in the
Tribune
, on the same day, said:

AICC general secretary Ambika Soni is hot favourite for the TV cameras. Even as nothing much seems to be happening at the venue till evening, she is seen providing filler sound bites to the eager camera crews.

The most sought-after comments, though repeated ad nauseam, are about Karnakata and Rahul’s induction into the CWC. Ms Soni appeared particularly pleased to talk about Rahul. Couched in euphemisms, the purport of her message was that the party needs the young Gandhi badly, and it is up to Sonia to appoint him.

Rahul wasn’t scheduled to speak at the plenary. But with the demand and the din for it peaking, he did make a stage appearance, almost coyly. On the first day of the proceedings, a chorus rose from the crowd demanding that Rahul speak. In order to pacify the crowds, he had to get up twice and promise to speak the next day. At that point, he was just the Amethi MP. He had largely confined himself to his constituency and neighbouring Rae Bareli. Despite the speculation, he did not join the Congress-led UPA government or accept a position in the Party organization.

When he spoke, politically, he made just one point: the Congress needed to revive itself in north India.

In some states our organization is not working effectively. People give many reasons for this failure. They blame communal- and religion-based parties. I absolutely disagree with this assessment. My thinking on this issue is, we have failed only in those areas where we have stopped fighting for the voters and their problems.

He said this to Congressmen hiding behind the premise that Mandal-and-
mandir
politics had taken its toll on the Congress base. The last time the Congress had come to power on its own at the Centre was in 1991.

Contrast Rahul’s opinion with Sonia Gandhi’s address to the Party on 14 September 1998. Voted out of power in the 1996 general elections and then again in 1998, the Party had organized a brainstorming camp at Pachmarhi in Madhya Pradesh. The idea was to introspect and come up with ways to arrest the Congress decline. Compared to 1991, the Congress’s vote share had gone down by more than 7 per cent in the 1996 elections. In 1998, it had dipped even further, by another 2 per cent or so. The panic-stricken Congress chose to go into a huddle over the losses at Pachmarhi. In her presidential remarks, Sonia said exactly what her son was to debunk as a false theory later at Hyderabad. As she listed out the reasons for the Party’s decline, she said:

Many of us thought that economic development and progress would roll back the spread of communal ideologies and put an end to the politics of hate. This has clearly not happened. The question we must ask ourselves is whether we have, in any way, diluted our commitment to the fight against communal forces. It would perhaps be tempting to say we have not. However, there is a general perception that we have at times compromised with our basic commitment to the secular ideal that forms the bedrock of our society. During our deliberations, we must all apply our minds to this vitally important question.

In the 1998 election, the BJP had secured only about 0.13 per cent fewer votes than the Congress, but it had bagged forty-one seats more than the latter—enough to cobble together a coalition and keep the Congress out of power. Among the Party’s chief concerns was its decline in UP and Bihar, and caste-based politics was identified as the cause. Sonia said,

Second, we must acknowledge that we have not successfully accommodated the aspirations of a whole new generation of Dalits, Adivasis and backward people, particularly in the northern parts of the country. Could this be one of the reasons for our decline in states like Uttar Pradesh and Bihar? Regrettably, we have not paid enough attention to the growth of such sentiments and feelings, and consequently have had to pay a heavy price. It is not enough to make promises. The Congress Party must ensure to this section of our people full and equal representation.

Years later, having debunked the Mandal–mandir theory as a reason for the Congress decline, Rahul added a footnote to his address with schoolboyish earnestness, ‘Someone once asked me what my religion was. I thought about it and I answered that the Indian flag was my religion. And I promised myself after my father died that I would serve the people this flag represents.’ Serve them he would, Rahul said, but,

by taking up a job before I know what my people and workers feel and need, I will be doing a disservice both to my religion and to my party. It’s time to learn and understand so that I can serve the people and the party better. I appreciate and I am grateful for your feelings and support. I assure you I will not let you down.

The speech and the plenary session at Hyderabad made it clear that the Gandhi scion wasn’t yet ready to shoulder any responsibility in the government or the Party. It also established that he would steer the Party in a different direction despite not holding a formal position in the Congress organization.

Till the 2004 elections, Rahul’s political pursuits had remained confined to visiting his parents’ constituency, Amethi. Rajiv contested and won from Amethi four times between 1980 and 1991. After Sonia joined the Congress Party, she, too, contested from Amethi in 1999. Both children had often accompanied their parents on their visits to the constituency. It was familiar terrain for them but the public perception was that it would be Priyanka who would join politics. Then, in March 2004, came the announcement that Rahul would contest the elections from Amethi while Sonia would move to Rae Bareli.

Rahul sailed through the election without any difficulty not only because he was contesting from the safest seat for anyone from his family, but also because of the electorate’s euphoria over ushering in a new generation of the Nehru–Gandhi clan into politics. A BBC report in March 2004, which followed the announcement of Rahul’s candidature from Amethi, quoted locals from different castes and communities as saying that they would vote for him. ‘Look at us here—a cross-section of voters of upper and lower castes, Hindus and a Muslim. We will all support them,’ said a voter from among a group of local residents having tea at a shack. Living up to their expectations, Rahul toured Amethi (and Rae Bareli) extensively between the election victory of 2004 and the plenary of 2006. He learned to mingle with the locals of the two constituencies with which the Gandhi family shares a special bond.

Shortly after the plenary at Hyderabad, Sonia took everyone by surprise once again. She suddenly resigned from Parliament as well as from the chairpersonship of over a dozen bodies, including the NAC which had been formed to monitor the functioning of the government’s policies. In 2004, she had turned down the offer to become prime minister and instead proposed Dr Manmohan Singh for the position. She had taken the decision after consultation with her two children. Rahul is said to have encouraged her to turn down the position and prove to the people that she was not in politics for personal gain. The move stumped the primary Opposition that had just lost the election—the National Democratic Alliance led by the BJP. The BJP had gone to great lengths to criticize the Congress, poking fun at it for not being able to find an Indian for the post of prime minister from among a billion people. Sushma Swaraj, who became leader of the Opposition in the 15th Lok Sabha, threatened to have her head tonsured if Sonia became prime minister. Sonia’s refusal saved Sushma’s tresses and cut short her histrionics.

A different set of actors—from Congress party workers threatening suicide to would-be cabinet ministers weeping on TV—took over the stage. But, once the din subsided, Manmohan Singh became prime minister of India. Sonia took charge of the NAC as chairperson soon after the United Progressive Alliance assumed power. The position accorded her a cabinet minister’s rank. But, in the beginning of 2006, the Supreme Court disqualified Rajya Sabha MP Jaya Bachchan from membership of the upper house because, it ruled, she was holding an office of profit as chairperson of the Uttar Pradesh Film Development Council. The ruling brought into focus Sonia’s several positions—as head of the NAC, the Rajiv Gandhi Foundation, the Indira Gandhi National Centre for Arts, and so on. At the time of the court’s decision, Sonia held such posts in more than a dozen bodies. The budget session of Parliament was on. The Opposition began to demand Sonia’s resignation as NAC chief. It stalled Parliament repeatedly saying the government would bring an ordinance to exclude the NAC chairperson’s office from the list of offices of profit. The din in Parliament began to get louder. Sonia, Rahul and Priyanka discussed the situation among themselves, just as they had less than two years ago. Rahul convinced Sonia not to let the ‘sacrifice of 2004’ go in vain. Just as she had in May 2004, Sonia shocked the Opposition again: she resigned as NAC chairperson and Lok Sabha MP.

Reporters covering the Congress beat got an SMS from Congress secretary Tom Vadakkan on the afternoon of 23 March 2006 saying Mrs Gandhi would make an important announcement. It gave them barely fifteen minutes to react. At 10 Janpath, swarms of journalists got busy registering themselves for entry at the reception manned by the SPG. No phones were allowed inside. Sonia emerged after the journalists were ushered to the lawn outside the house. Rahul accompanied her, while Priyanka stayed inside, and she announced her resignation. She said she would go back to the people of Rae Bareli and seek their verdict.

This was the first instance after the 2006 plenary—two months to be precise—that Rahul showed signs of taking up a larger role. He offered to be Sonia’s election manager for the by-election from Rae Bareli on 8 May, and his mother was only too happy to have him take up the task. Less than a month from the date of Sonia’s resignation, he went and camped in Rae Bareli. Every day, in the sweltering April heat, he would address a dozen or so public meetings, halting after every few kilometres. His speeches at these public meetings, attended sometimes by just a few dozen people, were more or less identical, but seemed to strike a chord with the audience. He reminded the people of their old links with the Nehru–Gandhi family and thanked them for their unending support. He held about 300 public meetings in the short period of three weeks, while Sonia visited the constituency only for a couple of large rallies at the beginning and the end of the campaign. Priyanka, too, mostly stayed away. She came to the constituency as Sonia’s election agent only at the fag end of the campaign. The mother–daughter duo were plainly happy to let Rahul take charge. Sonia won by the largest margin she had ever had. It was a multiple victory for Sonia—apart from the electoral gain and the rise in political stature, Rahul had shown the first signs of willingness to shoulder a larger responsibility. Though it was to be another year by the time he finally agreed to become the party general secretary and take charge of the youth organizations, the year 2006 did see Rahul shed some of his reluctance.