Decks cleared for Rahul Gandhi

Delhi was the first Congress citadel to fall to the Aam Aadmi Party. Now Arvind Kejriwal and his team have set their sights on another Congress fortress: Haryana where the Congress has ruled for 10 years. Amid speculation that assembly polls in the state could be held simultaneously with the Lok Sabha election in summer, AAP has stepped up its political forays into this neighbouring state through its chief ideologue Yogendra Yadav.

Like Kejriwal, Yadav is a Haryana boy and is being touted as AAP's candidate for chief minister. He has been touring frenetically and is said to be looking for good candidates for both parliamentary and state polls. The Communist Party of India (Marxist), which is quite active there, is upset because it seems Yadav has been connecting with its local leaders, many of who enjoy an honest reputation and have good grass roots support. Could AAP be trying to wean away CPI(M) cadres? The Leftists certainly fear so.

Haryana is particularly fertile ground for a new party like AAP for many reasons. It borders Delhi and winds from the Capital are already blowing through satellite towns like Gurgaon and Faridabad. The state has been ruled by the Congress for 10 years now and the government of Bhupinder Singh Hooda, like Sheila Dikshit's in Delhi, is hugely unpopular and perceived to be thoroughly corrupt. Robert Vadra's land scams and the witch hunt against the IAS officer who blew the whistle, Ashok Khemka, have only reinforced negative perceptions about the state government.

Most importantly, like Delhi, there is a huge vacuum in the opposition space. Om Prakash Chautala's Indian National Lok Dal (INLD) is in disarray after the boss and his sons were convicted in a fraud case. Although the old man is out of jail, he is a pale shadow of his former self and the sons have turned out to be quite worthless in terms of carrying the family's political legacy forward. The BJP has only a marginal presence and the son of another Haryana stalwart, Kuldeep Bishnoi whose father Bhajan Lal was a formidable Congress chief minister, has not taken off.

AAP is hoping to fill this vacuum. The most interested spectators of the party's heightened political activity in Haryana are in the anti-Hooda faction of the Congress. The buzz in the Congress is that some of them may secretly help AAP to defeat Hooda.

Decks cleared for Rahul Gandhi

With Prime Minister Manmohan Singh paving the way for Rahul Gandhi to be anointed as the Congress challenger to the BJP's Narendra Modi, all eyes are on the Jan 17 All India Congress Committee (AICC) session which is expected to mark the dawn of Rahul Gandhis era. Congress circles are bracing themselves for sweeping changes at all levels of the organisation so that the grand old party gets a younger, fresher look to reinforce the message of change that Rahul wants to send out as he prepares to take charge.

But some are wondering whether things will really change in the dynasty-driven party. Decision-making remains a closed family affair and the impression was reinforced with Priyanka Vadra jumping in to help her brother craft the transition. It seems she has been roped in to tackle the old guard and she has started meeting senior leaders, some on her own and some with her brother. Priyanka has always been regarded as the tougher of the two and she has often helped her mother in the past to deal with knotty problems concerning party elders. Now, she's put her talent for blunt talk at her brother's service.

Few know what changes are likely. In fact, some cynics speculate that nothing may come of all the hectic activity that is going on at different locations like 12 Tughlak Lane, which is Rahul's residence, and the war room on Gurudwara Rakabganj Road. But this time, Rahul can't afford to flounder and take the safer option of keeping the status quo. Having convinced Manmohan Singh with great difficulty to throw in the towel (at one point, Singh had hinted that he was ready to try for a third term) so that Rahul can be projected as the PM candidate, the Gandhi scion better put his money where his mouth is. Playing musical chairs instead of performing radical surgery will only diminish him.

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Decks cleared for Rahul Gandhi