From lasting affect of the Bharat Jodo Yatra, to long-distance monitoring, to targeted marketing campaign by social gathering leaders, the Congress is attempting to place a optimistic spin on the truth that Rahul Gandhi is up to now absent from the high-stakes Gujarat marketing campaign.
The state unit has no clear concept if that may change, with some leaders speaking tentatively of two visits by Rahul, one on November 22, every week to go for campaigning to finish for the primary part polling in 89 seats on December 1, and one other earlier than the second part on December 5.
That is fairly a departure from the high-octane marketing campaign in 2017 when Rahul had addressed practically 40 conferences, whereas making a number of temple visits, and launched a Navsarjan Yatra, which coated the size and breadth of Gujarat in a bus. The social gathering’s tally of 77 seats had been its highest since 1990 within the state, with the BJP’s 99 its lowest.
Congress leaders argue that it’s best Rahul will not be “distracted” from the Bharat Jodo Yatra, and remind that he didn’t marketing campaign in Himachal Pradesh both. Nevertheless, in Himachal, Priyanka Gandhi Vadra had taken cost of the social gathering marketing campaign.
Vadra was final in Gujarat in February 2019 when the Congress Working Committee met in Ahmedabad, and has by no means addressed a rally within the state. A Congress chief says, “When Rahulji is campaigning, there isn’t any level in additionally calling her. Each are our star campaigners. She comes when Rahulji is unable to, like in Himachal.”
Rahul’s absence coincides with the lack of senior Congress chief Ahmed Patel, the eyes and ears of the excessive command in Gujarat, who died of Covid-19 in 2020.
AICC basic secretary in-charge of Gujarat Raghu Sharma advised The Indian Specific that whereas Rahul won’t be current within the state, he’s continually “monitoring what the social gathering is doing in Gujarat”. “We’re making a plan for his conferences, however it’s fallacious to say he’s absent. He held conferences in Dwarka, Dahod and on the Sabarmati Riverfront as lately as September,” Sharma says.
Get together leaders argue that the comparability with 2017 can be fallacious as, on the time, Rahul was the vice-president of the social gathering.
A core committee member of the Gujarat Congress and AICC delegate, Gaurav Pandya, says there may be one other approach to take a look at this. “Everyone is on the sector campaigning. Had Rahulji come, the leaders who’re additionally candidates would have needed to abandon their marketing campaign and are available to his conferences, which might be damaging (for them).”
Moreover, says Pandya, “His (Rahul’s) Bharat Jodo Yatra is having an oblique affect on our marketing campaign. It’s got the Congress employee within the smallest of villages speaking about it they usually really feel that ‘we should always complement it’… The Bharat Jodo Yatra was deliberate with a nationwide perspective.”
Pandya acknowledges, although, that Rahul’s intensive marketing campaign of 2017 “did construct a join and profit the Congress, aside from the social motion that obtained the Patidars related (to the social gathering)”.
The absence of the Gandhis is predicted to harm the social gathering most within the tribal areas, which have been its stronghold and the place the household nonetheless has a following. Congress leaders are additionally despondent that the “disinterest” comes at a time when the Aam Aadmi Get together is making an aggressive bid in Gujarat, and is predicted to chop into the social gathering’s votes.
Of the 27 ST reserved seats in Gujarat, the Congress had received 17 in 2017, of whom 5 MLAs have since joined the BJP. Two of them stop after the Adivasi Adhikar Yatra by the Congress in Could to consolidate its tribal vote.
Congress spokesperson Manish Doshi says the launch of the Adivasi yatra by Rahul in Dahod has been adopted up by a “door-to-door marketing campaign in tribal areas speaking about what the social gathering will do to guard their rights to jal, jungle, jameen”.
Congress leaders declare that in these areas, AAP has dented the Bharatiya Tribal Get together extra, whereas the BJP was attempting to “lure its tribal MLAs”. “The appointment of Droupadi Murmu as President can be being utilized by the social gathering to affect tribals,” says a frontrunner.
Rahul’s final go to to Gujarat was on September 5 when, two days to go for the launch of the Bharat Jodo Yatra, he addressed a rally on the Sabarmati Riverfront, unveiling a broad manifesto of thte social gathering, promising Rs 4 lakh as compensation to households of those that succumbed to Covid-19, farm mortgage waiver of as much as Rs 3 lakh, free electrical energy for households as much as 300 items and many others. These guarantees are a part of the Congress’s manifesto launched lately.
On the Dahod rally in Could, Rahul had shared the stage with then working president Hardik Patel and Jignesh Mevani. Hardik, the face of the Patidar agitation, had left the Congress quickly after to hitch the BJP.
Earlier than that, in February, Rahul addressed a Chintan Shivir of the Congress in Dwarka, the place the technique for the elections was mentioned. In his deal with on Day 2, he advised social gathering leaders to give you a imaginative and prescient for Gujarat and “challenge 25 individuals who would rework that imaginative and prescient into actuality”.
Looking for to place its home so as, in the meantime, the AICC Monday introduced a staff of zonal observers, together with Mukul Wasnik, Mohan Prakash, Prithviraj Chavan, B Okay Hariprasad and Okay H Muniyappa. Barring Muniyappa, the remaining have been in-charge of Gujarat in some unspecified time in the future.
The social gathering additionally introduced 32 ‘Lok Sabha Observers’ accountable for the 26 Lok Sabha seats in Gujarat and 5 ‘Normal Observers’.