Is Rahul Gandhi a Poor Brand Ambassador for Congress?

Young MPs like Jyotiraditya Scindia were calling for Rahul Gandhi to take up the Prime Ministership, though Rahul Gandhi declined it, citing his lack of experience. But Rahul’s political clout grew in the months that followed.

Congress leaders saw Rahul as the pivot of a new power centre. It seemed as Rahul was actively involved in everything – “from deciding policies on climate change to the selection of candidates for elections, and even in deciding chief ministers and the new Cabinet,” reports First Post.

But in the past three years the tide has turned against Rahul, that now even Congressmen are beginning to acknowledge his failings, going by Khurshid’s brutally honest assessment of him.

So how did Rahul manage to comprehensively lose the political plot? In electoral politics nothing succeeds like success. Even as far back as in 2007, Rahul was being dismissed as a political lightweight, but the UPA’s re-election in 2009, which was attributed to his exertions to re-energise the party, changed it all.