Rahul Gandhi Will Now Have to Choose His Words With Care and Pick His Battles

Leadership in Parliament requires a different skill set from that needed to work the crowds in an election campaign.

Finally, Nehru-Gandhi scion Rahul Gandhi has decided to bite the bullet and assume a formal leadership role, which he had been reluctant to do since he stepped down as Congress party president following its poor performance in the 2019 Lok Sabha election.

The senior Congress leader will now be seen in a new avatar as the Leader of the Opposition (LoP) in the Lok Sabha, a position which pits him directly against Prime Minister Narendra Modi. The Congress has got this post after ten years as it did not have the required number of seats both in 2014 and 2019 to claim this position.

As the LoP, a cabinet-rank position, Rahul Gandhi will have a seat at the high table. He will have membership in key parliamentary panels like the Public Accounts Committee and will sit in on committees which appoint heads to the Central Bureau of Investigation, the Central Vigilance Commission, the National Human Rights Commission, and so on.

Since all these committees are weighted in favour of the government, there is a tendency to isolate the Opposition leader and deny him a say in the appointment of these bureaucrats. Rahul Gandhi will have his hands full dealing with a prime minister who may have been numerically weakened but is in no mood to compromise.

Apart from this, Rahul Gandhi has equally onerous responsibilities in the Lok Sabha. He is expected to lead the charge against the Bharatiya Janata Party-led National Democratic Alliance and work closely with the other INDIA bloc parties to ensure that it functions as a well-oiled machine and puts up a united front in Parliament. His leadership and diplomatic skills will be tested over the next five years.

Given the road ahead and his past record, the obvious question is whether the Congress leader is ready for the challenge ahead. There is no doubt that Rahul Gandhi has shed his "Pappu" image after his Bharat Jodo Yatra and with the Congress party’s improved tally in the Lok Sabha which has been credited to his persistent and aggressive campaign against the BJP in general and Prime Minister Narendra Modi in particular.

But a leadership position in Parliament requires a different skill set from that needed to work the crowds in an election campaign. As the LoP, Rahul Gandhi will have to remember that he is no longer in election mode. It is expected that he will now transition from election rhetoric to making substantive and well-researched speeches with a cogent presentation of the Opposition’s stand on key issues while taking down government policies in a mature and reasoned manner.

Undoubtedly, Rahul Gandhi is feeling self-assured after the Congress party doubled its tally in the Lok Sabha while the BJP failed to get a majority on its own. However, there is a lurking fear that an over-confident Congress leader could still manage to mess up with his off-the-cuff remarks and unnecessary interventions in the House.

Instead, Rahul Gandhi will have to choose his words with care, pick his battles, and resist the temptation of taking unnecessary personal potshots at the Prime Minister or indulging in gimmicks as he did in 2018 when he rushed across to the treasury benches and embraced Modi. The Congress leader could draw upon his mother Sonia Gandhi’s experience as Leader of the Opposition. She did not get drawn into a war of words with the treasury benches, spoke on a few chosen occasions and left the rest to deputy leaders Madhavrao Scindia and Shivraj Patil.

In his capacity as LoP, floor coordination assumes a critical role now, particularly if the INDIA bloc is serious about holding the treasury accountable. The time for rushed decisions is over. The election of the Lok Sabha Speaker is a case in point. The Congress announced that the Opposition would also field a candidate for the Speaker’s post as the BJP leadership was not willing to agree to its demand for the Deputy Speaker’s post.

However, the move ended up exposing the cracks in its ranks as the Trinamool Congress maintained it was only consulted shortly before Congress MP K Suresh filed his nomination papers. Realising that a vote count could reveal its internal differences, the Opposition did not press for a division during the Speaker's election.

This should prove to be an early lesson for Rahul Gandhi that he will have to tread carefully while dealing with senior regional bosses like West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, whose ego has to be constantly massaged. The Trinamool Congress chief belongs to a special category as she has been dismissive of Rahul Gandhi in the past and has found it difficult to accept him in a leadership role.

Rahul Gandhi could take some tips from Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge who is the Leader of the Opposition in the Rajya Sabha. Kharge has established a fine working relationship with the other Opposition leaders and has been known to carry everyone along.

As the LoP, Rahul Gandhi will face off with the Prime Minister on innumerable occasions. The “Modi vs Rahul” narrative will be centre stage once again. It is now for Rahul Gandhi to see that he does not give the BJP an opportunity to resurrect his “Pappu” image. The Congress leader made a good beginning with his statesman-like comments on the election of Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla. He needs to keep this up.

(The writer is a senior Delhi-based journalist. She can be reached at @anitaakat. This is an opinion piece and the views expressed are the author's own. The Quint neither endorses nor is responsible for them.)