Rahul in Rae Bareli: Fortifying the Congress with 'mohabbat, mithaas'

As Lok Sabha Leader of Opposition Rahul Gandhi engages with the local youth of Rae Bareli this evening on a two-day visit to his Parliamentary constituency, topics veer from the personal struggles of disprivileged citizens to India's image abroad and the nation’s potential to do right by its youngest adult citizens.

Speaking in Lalganj at a Yuva Samvad gathering, the Rae Bareli MP brings up again the "personal matter" remark from Prime Minister Narendra Modi to the question about Gautam Adani's indictment in the US.

In Washington earlier this month, at a joint press conference with US President Donald Trump, Modi had said it was the sort of "personal issue" that is not discussed when two prominent world leaders meet.

"But it is a national issue!" argues Gandhi. “Had he truly been India's prime minister, he would have asked Trump about the matter and told him that he would get it enquired into and, if needed, offered to sent him (to the US) for the inquiry,” said Gandhi, suggesting that the pattern is that of a PM uncaring of India's citizens and more absorbed in crony capitalism for political benefit.

Which, naturally, is not to the benefit of the ordinary citizen, of the disprivileged youth struggling to obtain a good education and get a decent job. On arrival in his constituency last night, Gandhi had noted that an ethical government could ensure the youth of India have a choice of crores of jobs. Left implicit was that this honourable job was clearly not being done.

Earlier this morning, 21 February, Gandhi spoke at an event in honour of Veera Pasi, a hero of the 1857 revolt — a man whose concern for the nation and his fellow citizens was above his own life. A stark contrast, certainly, to the stance the Congress accuses India's current PM of.

Yesterday, he had also honoured another revolutionary hero, Rana Beni Madho of Awadh. The ruler of erstwhile Shankarpur, who also offered his aid to Begum Hazrat Mahal, wife of Nawab Wajid Ali Shah, and led some 15,000 of his own people against the British in the Mutiny of 1857.

Beni Madho's was an organisation and outreach network that the Congress, as it begins laying its groundwork for the 2027 Uttar Pradesh assembly polls, could take inspiration from. The other lesson his story holds is that of bringing allies together against a common enemy. For Madho, it was the local zamindars and rival rulers against the British. For Gandhi, it must be his political rivals-turned-allies in the INDIA bloc — or not.

Local party workers today met Gandhi at his parliamentary residence in Bhuemau to discuss various regional issues. The concerns of the Dalit constituents, in particular, took centre stage.

One of these is the Valmiki community’s continued struggle in sanitation work without safety equipment.

“A major concern is that sanitation workers from the Valmiki community, employed in municipal bodies, are still forced to work without protective gear, which is a violation of Supreme Court directives,” Sunil Kumar Gautam, president of the Congress’ Scheduled Caste wing in Rae Bareli, told PTI Videos.

Gautam said a 12-member delegation from the Dalit community also met Gandhi at his Bhuemau residence.

Amidst the ongoing ‘he said, she said’ of the (BSP) Bahujan Samaj Party and the Congress, Gandhi ruefully noted that had Mayawati joined the INDIA bloc, the BJP would not be ruling India again in 2024. That regret over a failed alliance that could have consolidated the Dalit vote that deepens the Congress’ determination to expand its outreach efforts to the community.

Earlier in the day, Gandhi was seen among the schoolchildren of Narpatganj, and the day before, when he arrived in Rae Bareli late in the evening, he was seen at Shyam Sadar, tucking into tea and samosas. There he said, "The mohabbat (love) and mithaas (sweetness) of Rae Bareli are unparallelled."

The Congress' Rae Bareli committee vice-president Sarvottam Kumar Mishra praised Gandhi's leadership, and said his "honesty, vision and work ethic were beyond description".

The 2024 Lok Sabha election, the Delhi and Maharashtra shockers, would have shown the grand old party that it hasn't poured enough into its campaigns to convince the citizens and overcome their rivals.

Lying ahead — for the entire party and for Gandhi personally — is the long game, to try and test whether love and sweetness can truly be enough for a political and sociological victory in the vitiated atmosphere of a BJP-ruled double-engine Uttar Pradesh (and NDA-led India).

That double engine, Gandhi asserted today, has broken down — it is "no engine at all" for development, offering nothing for those who merely seek to live with dignity.

He alleged that privatisation of education and healthcare was on the rise. "Basic services are becoming inaccessible to the common people. Studying in private schools requires lakhs of rupees, but if a degree does not provide employment, it becomes nothing more than a worthless piece of paper. Similarly, getting treatment in private hospitals is becoming increasingly difficult for the common man," he added.

He also said economic disparity was increasing and held the government responsible. "Ordinary citizens pay GST on necessities but wealthy industrialists do not contribute taxes in the same proportion. This is a clear injustice. Recently, a Rs 10 crore watch was seen at Ambani's wedding. Where is this money coming from?"

Fiery as his words are, there is a clear parallel in Rana Beni Madho's story for the INDIA bloc’s — and the Congress’, in particular — struggle to unite and awaken a mass of people sometimes reluctant, often pulling against each other, to bring them together against the common bogey of the BJP-RSS (as the British were in Madho's time) and what it is doing to a once justifiably proud nation... A nation now more arrogant about the importance of its celebrities and tycoons than of its progressive values, its unity in diversity, its history of accretion and syncreticism and cultural exchange, of its education and artistry.

Will mohabbat be enough? Maybe... but it will need to be wielded by a diplomatic, organised hand, not poetry and eloquence alone.

With PTI inputs