Silence is golden, RaGa must realise it

It is easy to get distracted when you are achieving popularity. Many times, popularity can go to one's head and one can get over confident. This can lead to not just a slip of the tongue, but to committing blunders. And then people start not to take one seriously.

Having set the backdrop, let us come to the brass tacks. Congress vice president Rahul Gandhi has started off with his Bharat Jodo Yatra (BJY) but on route he appears to be losing balance. It is said diplomacy is all about the art of knowing when to stand up, when to speak up and when to shut up. Ditto goes for any communication, more so for political communication.

But Rahul Gandhi, notorious for his off-the-cuff statements and behaviour, does not seem to shed that image. Let us look at his statements about Veer Savarkar. One may praise or criticise Savarkar for what he has done or not done. There are lots of people who speak ill of Netaji, Pandit Nehru, Sardar Patel or for that matter even Mahatma Gandhi. The least that Rahul ought to have done was to rake up the Savarkar controversy for his role in the freedom struggle. This is even more pertinent when his BJY was in the BJP-ruled Maharashtra.

Another saffron party the Shiv Sena happens to be the Congress ally in the Maha Vikas Aghadi that ruled the State till five months ago. The result was while BJP expectedly blasted Rahul while the Shiv Sena sought to distance itself from the controversy saying it did not agree with what Rahul said about Savarkar. This obviously diverted the people's attention from the BJY and what RaGa said about Savarkar. Any amount of firefighting would not douse the controversy.

Then Rahul got himself entangled in religious controversies which again gave adequate ammo to the BJP to blast BJY. How does it matter to Rahul if someone refers to Lord Ram as Jai Sri Ram or Siya Ram? But no. He has to put his foot in his mouth. Had he taken up the issues of atrocities against women, he could always pick up official data and then play up.

As we said in the beginning of the BJY, there are enough issues such as unemployment, prices, farmer crisis such as non-availability and high cost of fertilisers, spiralling LPG and petrol prices, poverty, MSME crisis and the clearly visible flip-flop on coal auctioning. To give a love example, the Prime Minister said recently at Ramagundam that the Singareni coal mines would not be privatised as the Centre is a minority shareholder in the coal company.

But only last week-end we had an official announcement that four Singareni mines would be put on the block. Rahul Gandhi should know or be told that the media has been quite fair in its coverage of the BJY. Actually, he need not worry much about the media coverage since the people are supposedly participating on their own with great enthusiasm.

His social media teams are posting good snapshots which are expectedly being trolled by BJP and its supporters. To that extent the BJY is garnering a good number of eye-balls. BJP supporters are much larger than that of Congress and when the former trolls Rahul, they inadvertently retweet the BJY snapshots. Thus, the Congress does not have to struggle to get noticed. It is for the people to judge.

In such a situation, Rahul Gandhi commits a hat-trick of faux by bringing the media into his speeches. He says the media does not cover farmers' problems and price rise, one gets to see only Prime Minister Narendra Modi's speeches and statements. Then he goes on to say it is not journalists' fault, the media owners are forcing them to toe the BJP line of thought.

But for few pro-BJP TV channels, the rest of the media is generally free and fair and Rahul should be happy about it. Moreover, he need not worry about what media reports or comments about. Media certainly does not need his sympathy. He should be happy that the media has not pointed out that the BJY has cleverly avoided the election prone states.

Could Congress not have held parallel rallies in those States? I leave it to their wisdom and rather not interfere in the party's internal issues. One hopes that the Congress documents what the Bharat Jodo observes across the country and uses it for its future political communication. They could even make a short film or series to point out issues of local as well as national interest and not just the PR exercises of Rahul such as his saffron shawl and pujas.

It is a good political idea to keep up the tempo with Mahila rallies led by Priyanka Gandhi. There are enough issues that bother women and which have to be addressed. The Congress could even collect data and document evidence on women's issues and present them to President Droupadi Murmu.

Politicians would earn some respect and credibility if they avoid personal attacks and this applies to both the BJP and the Congress. In your attempts of demonstrating one-upmanship, you don't have to go to low levels to decry your opponent.

Rules and Politics may not go together. But unfortunately, we are forced to elect our lawmakers from among this political class (pun intended). One expected BJY to be a serious affair – away from personal attacks. Unfortunately, again, the electioneering in Gujarat and Himachal Pradesh and the BJP and BJY speeches, countering each other, have shown the utter lack of seriousness, so far.

BJY still has miles to go and we can only hope that the grand old party will give the nation a much-deserved strong Opposition.

(The author is a Mumbai-based media veteran, known for his thought-provoking messaging)