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secretary in charge of the Youth Congress, he had reorganized structures and local party
elections, and contributed to other organizational matters. But he had shown absolutely no
grip or interest in policy. More importantly, he had shown no continuity of purpose, often
crises, such as the country-wide mass protests about corruption, gang rape and the treat-
ment of women in 2011 and 2012. He made adequate election-style speeches to crowds of
thousands but rarely engaged in public debate or gave media interviews. This matched his
mother's reclusive approach, but he seemed far more detached than her.
Rahul continually resisted public invitations from Manmohan Singh to join the govern-
ment as a minister, and also resisted suggestions that he should play a larger role in the
party. Eventually, however, he put his political reputation on the line when he energetic-
ally led the Congress party's campaign in Uttar Pradesh's 2012 state assembly elections,
Congress, however, was routed in what in effect was a rejection of him and his election
its share of the votes went from 8.61 per cent to just 11.63 per cent. It even lost heavily in
three parliamentary constituencies (Amethi, Rae Bareli and Sultanpur) that were regarded
as the family's fiefdoms where Rahul and Sonia Gandhi and another loyalist had been MPs.
The results showed that Gandhi had little impact in many constituencies that he had vis-
ited during the campaign (and in places where he had gone in the previous couple of years).
The family had projected their dynastic credentials with aplomb - some reports sugges-
ted arrogance - but Rahul was not identified personally with the state's future. He was not
standing as the potential Uttar Pradesh chief minister (that would have been an extraordin-
arily difficult job, which he scarcely needed to tackle when the prime minister's post was
within his grasp), and he had not developed any brand image. He spent most of his elec-
tion speeches telling his poor audiences about what they did not have and how awful the
incumbent government had been, instead of producing concrete proposals about how he
would boost their livelihoods. The result was a serious blow because it underlined his fail-
ure to emerge as a capable politician in the years since he became a member of parliament
in 2004.
I noticed his lack of presence in an informal atmosphere one afternoon in August 2012
at Delhi's Visual Arts gallery where he and Sonia Gandhi had gone (with impressively
minimal security) to see works by Devangana Kumar, daughter of the Lok Sabha Speaker,
Meira Kumar. Although she looked tired and unwell, Sonia had a presence, but what struck
me most was how unimpressive Rahul looked on an occasion when he was not perform-
ing publicly. He dutifully followed his mother around the exhibition but he showed scant
curiosity while she asked questions about the socially significant works (photographs of
