The evaluating media has started to feel Rahul Gandhi boring at the very dawn of campaigning, a bad omen. What the commentator* feels and why so is critical :
Both Rahul and Modi talk about dreams – of others and of their own. Both talk about the aspirations of young India. Both claim to have a vision of a better India. And both despite the hype surrounding them, make little sense. That is probably where the similarities in the typical Rahul Gandhi and Narendra Modi speeches end.
The differences are more pronounced. One is self-conscious to the point of being diffident, the other is overconfident to the point of being unbearable. Rahul appears to be person burdened with a role for which he has had no adequate preparation while Modi carries the airs of a man who can do no wrong.
The former reflects the state of mind of a confused homegrown philosopher and the latter the cockiness of a man who believes who can get away with anything, including lies. One is aloof, the other desperate To put it unsubtly, one comes across as a novice to the job and the other as a seasoned actor good at manipulating people.
Rahul Gandhi’s speech at Baran in Rajasthan on Tuesday was insipid and soulless, the same way it was in Jaipur a few days ago. In Jaipur, he had claimed “I am ready to forgo my own dreams to fulfil your dreams’’; in his speech yesterday, he spoke about how the poorest in India should have the biggest dream. “If we don’t let you dream, India can’t progress,” he said. The dream theme is surely getting overdone.
The Congress vice-president appears to be running out of content to make his speeches fresh and lively or he is tiring already. His speech writers must exert themselves some more. Not a natural orator like Modi, Rahul fails to build emotional connect with the audience. He could make this weakness up with details, specifics and anecdotes.
In none of his public speeches, has he appeared to have enough depth to keep the audience engaged. Possibly, it comes from his lack of exposure to real responsibility or real understanding of the people he claims to identify with: the aam aadmi.
It is not *Akshaya Mishra , but many others are throwing similar views.