Six states lost since 2014, doubts grow over #RahulGandhi’s leadership
NEW DELHI: Rahul Gandhi made no effort to suppress his glee when he strolled out to meet the media after BJP lost the Bihar election by a mile to the Nitish-Lalu-Congress grand alliance last November. This is a win, he said, for “bhaichara” and PM Modi should listen carefully to what the country is saying.
On Thursday, a reported bout of Chikungunya spared Rahul the trouble of having to offer a sound bite. Congress’s tally falling from 163 to 115 MLAs in five states with 824 MLAs speaks for itself. Even in Puducherry, the battle went down to the wire. Congress now has governments only in Karnataka, Uttarakhand, Himachal, Manipur, Meghalaya and Mizoram. The defeats bring the debate over Rahul’s taking formal charge of Congress into sharp focus, reflecting an intense desire in the party rank and file, even among those not exactly enamoured of his political style, that he accept the party president’s mantle and be done with it.
