Rahul strikes a fine balancing act

Winning elections is one of the most difficult tasks for a political party, especially when its popularity is at its all-time low. Here is what happened with the Congress. The party won anyhow three state assembly elections - Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, and Chhattisgarh- which were under the BJP rule for years. It is a very big achievement of the Congress party in the face of the rising popularity of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and BJP leadership. But even after winning elections, there arose a big problem of choosing the candidates for the posts of Chief Minister among the young and the veteran old guards at least in the case of Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan for the party President Rahul Gandhi. It was proving to be an Achilles heel for him. Though the case of Madhya Pradesh was settled with the choice of CM's post between Kamal Nath and Jyotiraditya Scindia fell on Kamal Nath because of his being a senior, astute, resourceful and veteran politician. As hardly four months away from now, the 2019 Lok Sabha elections are going to be held. It will be the final war between Congress and BJP. That is why Congress made Kamal Nath MP CM. Though Jyotiraditya is a young, energetic and popular leader of the Congress party, Kamal Nath is veteran old guard who began his politics with late Sanjay Gandhi. He was in the front of Sanjay brigade at that time. He has also been very close to Nehru-Gandhi family, the power centre of Congress party. On the other hand, Jyotirdiya Scindhia has also been very close to Rahul Gandhi. He is a prominent face of Rahul's young brigade in the Congress party. He was also the convenor of Madhya Pradesh assembly election campaigns. He campaigned hard and made a great contribution to the victory of the party in the state, though with a marginal gap. He was also a strong contender along with Kamal Nath for the post of Chief Minister of the state. The MP state legislature party could not reach on a consensus candidate for the post and left it to Congress President Rahul Gandhi to choose one of the two. It was a very difficult task. Gandhi had to maintain a fine balance between the young and the old in the party in view of the war at hand in 2019. But considering the experience and contacts across the like-minded political parties, the choice with the consent of Jyotiraditya Scindhia went in favour of Kamal Nath and ultimately the Congress party declared him as party MP CM. The same problem is in Rajasthan. Here also, there are two contenders - Ashok Gehlot and Sachin Pilot- for the post of Chief Minister of the state. Ashok Gehlot is experienced, veteran and has adorned the post of CM twice. He is also a very popular politician in the state. On the other hand, Sachin Pilot is young, energetic and popular among the youth in the state. He has also been state party president. He also claims the post of CM very strongly. Newly State Congress legislatures left the decision with Congress Party President Rahul Gandhi to take. Again, he was put in a delicate situation. He had to manage and strike a fine balance between the old and the young keeping in view the great battle of 2019 Lok Sabha elections lying ahead. But again, he solved the problems with exemplary alacrity through consensus by choosing the veteran Ashok Gehlot as the CM of Rajasthan. At last, Rahul Gandhi tweeted with himself in the middle of Kamal Nath and Jyotiraditya Scindhia in the first photo and Ashok Gehlot and Sachin Pilot with himself in the middle in the second photo. These two photos clearly reflected that at last, the unity in party prevailed. One thing that also came out this is that Rahul Gandhi left no stone unturned in finding consensus and unanimous opinion on any issue in the party.