The case of Rahul Gandhi
I do not know why or how the political acumen in the Gandhi Family has watered down, but it clearly has. Now, Jawaharlal Nehru is being criticissed for a lot of his decisions, but hindsight is 20-20, meaning we have the data of several decades to see which of his policies were successful and which were a total waste - but he didnt. Within whatever data he had and the comparisons he could reasonably make, he made policy decisions the merits of which that are even now being debated by the BJP which wants to completely do away with the Congress ruled years and the legacy Nehru left behind. But his political acumen as well as his daughter's was definitely on the nose. They had the eye on the ball and were excellent players in the political arena. One could say that they had no competition, and maybe that was partly an issue in Mr. Nehru's time, but by the time Mrs. Gandhi came to power, it was definitely not the case. Her son, Rajiv Gandhi, was also competent in the political arena, but served only one term and was assassinated before he could fight to get back to power.
But Rahul Gandhi has been completely sidelined before he could really come into his own. There was a motivated trolling machinery committed to branding him "Pappu" and labelling him inept and generally a bumbling, incompetent teen who doesn't even deserve a seat at the adult dinner table, much less, in the power corridors of Raisina Hill. And this strategy has worked for the BJP in the 2014 elections and every early mis-step on his part was blown up beyond it deserved and this strategy has been continuing to work in their favour by taking on a life of its own. This manufactured image is so ingrained in the popular psyche now that no one can look beyond the Pappu tag and take the fellow seriously, so much so, he seems to have given up leading at the centre in the Congress has has taken to a walking trip about the country lasting months!
The rise and rise of the CM sons : How can you send back to the benches that nepo candidate who is being favoured for posts and portfolios beyond those better qualified and better experienced???
1. Don't vote for them? That sounds easy - lets do that. Except the CM's son will not stand for election in your constituency. His father knows where to field him as we saw in the previous post. He will become a MLA one way or the other. And in 10-15 years time he will be ready to take over from his father and then Udayanidhi's son/daughter will become CM of Tamil Nadu another 40 years from now.
2. See above note about Rahul Gandhi. Now, there is a lesson in all this for those committed against nepotistic politics. If enough resources are committed to this, any opposition party can dig up enough dirt for a disinformation campaign, cancel campaign, negative branding exercise, a trolling campaign and whatever the latest social media strategists come up with. And given that the BJP has done it on the national stage, they could easily scale down their process with targeted campaigns to brand the upcoming political heirs in each of the major regional parties - as doofuses, idiots, mumblers and bumblers without giving any of them a chance to sink or swim on their own. And maybe it is a good thing given that their fathers have considerable long term resources to sink into their heirs - and only those with a spine, very good political acumen and strong motivation to succeed politically or the ability to get themselves first class chanakyas as advisors can rise above the character abolishing trolling campaign that can and will be mounted against them.
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