5 Surprising reasons why Rahul Gandhi has failed in Politics so far

India’s per capita GDP has hardly changed (Dollar terms) since 2018. In fact, Bangladesh which was far behind when Modi became PM is has almost caught up with India. Inspite of this, a recent survey by CVoter shows PM Modi was 40 points ahead of Rahul Gandhi. That is a huge lead!

Here are 5 reasons why we think Rahul Gandhi has failed in politics so far

  1. India’s voters have changed, Congress hasn’t: Over the last 15-20 years, India’s poverty levels have gone down substantially. Middle Class who made were just 45% of the voters in 2006 became a big majority at 70% in 2016. How did Rahul Gandhi respond to this change? In 2019, Congress party launched NYAY for the poorest of the voters hardly paying any attention to the rest 70% of the voters. The rest is history.
  2. Congress party reforms are pending for last 50 years: Rahul Gandhi was the party VP for many years and party President for about 18 months. Throughout the course of his stint, he has spoken about reforms within the party to change the party culture But nothing much has been today. Even today, the significant proportion of the party behaves like mercenaries as we can see through the widespread defections in the party across many states.
  3. Rahul has limited Focus on Funding: One of the biggest reasons why BJP outperforms Congress in Lok Sabha elections is it is way better at mobilising Funding for Lok Sabha elections. A large proportion of the Congress party funds has remained with Individual politicians who have been quite reluctant to spend money when required. Rahul Gandhi has done little to improve the funding architecture within the party leaving less funded State units with little money for Lok Sabha elections.
  4. Lack of continuous personal engagement: A lot of money and defection issues can be fixed if Rahul Gandhi’s own personal branding improved. Except for Gujarat election, Rahul Gandhi’s grassroots engagement has been haphazard. While he may sound well meaning to some elitist voters, the vast masses struggle to connect with him. Unlike leaders like KCR, Jagan or Mamata, Rahul Gandhi has not gone down and dirty on the ground to connect with voters. His choice of words and demeanour are rarely earthy.
  5. Inability to win own Seat in Amethi: While reforming self or the Congress party might have been a very difficult challenge, not paying attention to own seat is a huge blunder. That has hurt his credibility much more than anything.

Whether Rahul can improve or not, time will tell but at the moment he poses no threat at all to the BJP.