Returning from a 56 day sabbatical, Congress Vice President Rahul Gandhi has wasted no time in setting the political agenda, taking many of his adversaries by surprise. Interacting with farmers at his residence, making a direct charge at the Prime Minister in a mega 'Kisan-Khet-Majdoor' rally on 19th April and following it up with a fact-filled and tongue-in-cheek 20 minute long intervention in Lok Sabha where he branded the BJP government as a 'suit-boot ki sarkar'.
With a much improved body-language and quick wit demonstrated especially when he left the treasury benches tongue-tied on the 'desh ke Pradhan Mantri aapke pradhan mantri nahi hai?' reference and his ability to get the old guard and new guard to work together to pull off a successful rally at Ramleela Maidan, a feat that even the BJP failed at, in the run up to Delhi elections, is now being hailed in media circles as launch of "Rahul 2.0".
But politics unlike media discourses aren't about cleverly coined epithets. It's about issues. So what should be next on Rahul's plate? Clearly, he has demonstrated that Congress party stands with the farmers on the issue of land acquisition. The "zameen wapsi" abhiyan has been a matter of conviction for him and as Rahul himself advised the PM in Parliament, it is a vote catching issue affecting nearly 65 per cent of the population! Congress president Sonia Gandhi, led a united opposition to Rashtrapati Bhawan, symbolically establishing that both, within and outside parliament, the Congress party would spearhead this campaign, that affects rural India aka Bharat.
But the problem of the Congress has also been its disenchantment with urban, middle class India and young voters, particularly the huge section of first time voters (FTVs) and floating voters (FVs) who preferred BJP over Congress in May 2014. Rahul must tap into this base as well, especially when it seems to be getting increasingly frustrated with the "all talk, no delivery' approach of the Modi government over the past 11 months. Recent polls and the changing narrative, shows how frustrated urban India is becoming with a long list of unfulfilled promises by Mr. Modi. To add insult to injury, his government is pursuing a regressive agenda, when it comes to banning movies, cuss words and staying silent against hate-mongers attacking minorities. The liberal, pro-development mask, couched in the political Jumla of "Sabka Saath, Sabka Vikas" that fetched Modi a huge chunk of seats in the urban areas and scripted his victory in 2014, as it did for Congress in 2009 when Congress won most urban constituencies, is now slipping off, faster than most imagined.
So here is the next agenda that Rahul must quite logically associate with- Net Neutrality. Home to 24.31 crore 'Internet Users', out of which 17.30 crore are 'Mobile Internet Users'. India and its youth are among the most tech-savy and best networked-with a total of 11.20 crore Facebook users, nearly 7 crore WhatsApp users and 2.20 crore Twitter Users by end of 2014. Needless to add that India is the second largest smart phone global market with recent estimate expecting smart phone users base to touch 65 crore with internet access by 2020. The key to the lost urban, middle class and floating voters constituency, can very well be this issue, which is as emotive as land acquisition is to farmers. The over-whelming response to the AIB video and #SaveTheInternet campaign, for a free internet, which saw lakhs of emails being sent to the TRAI on its consultation paper, bears testimony to this. Yes, the Congress party has stated its position on this already but Rahul's political stand on this issue, as he did with Section 377 and rights of sexual minorities, would help register the party's convictions in an unequivocal manner and lend huge support to the cause. Digvijaya Singh of the Congress party was the first one to raise the issue in Parliament, through his question in March 2015 to the Telecom Ministry on Net Neutrality and there is every reason why the Congress Vice President, should seize this issue with both "hands"- no pun intended.
Imagine if Rahul Gandhi were to get up and dish out, just as he did with the land acquisition bill, facts about how greedy telecom companies, making huge profits, still wanted more at the expense of poor, hapless consumers and start ups. The imagery is one, that a left-of-the-Centre Rahul has been speaking about for sometime now -the battle between a few and the many- the battle between public interest and the government that prostrates before narrow corporate interests , whether it's the right to own land or the right to use the Internet as you wish. There couldn't be a more compelling issue that Rahul would find to re-create space in the minds of young, middle class and urban voters.
(DISCLAIMER - The views expressed in the article are the author's personal opinion and not that of CNN-IBN/IBNLIVE)
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