Cornering Rahul Gandhi

Efforts are on to permanently dethrone 52-year-old Cornering Rahul Gandhi, the uncrowned king of Indian politics, and throw him out of the arena. This time he is attacked from both the political and judicial fronts that have made him run for cover. To begin with it was a court in Surat, in Modi’s home state Gujrat, found him guilty of defamation for a speech referring to thieves as having the surname Modi and sentenced him to two years in prison though he was given bail and the sentence was suspended for thirty days. Gandhi’s once-dominant Congress controls less than 10 per cent of seats in the parliament losing badly to the BJP in two successive general elections and though he is not the nominal head of the party but is widely held to be its electoral star. The other blow fell when Indian parliament disqualified Gandhi a day after the court’s sentence. Pre-empting such a move Gandhi did not enter the parliament during its proceedings and is gearing to file an appeal in a higher court. Gandhi has already given up the presidency of Congress party and his recent long-march through the country has not brought much change to his party’s fortunes. TW

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