Ruling Congress party's dynasty has been pressed to one of most difficult and unpredictable election season, as more and more critics questioning: Can Rahul Gandhi project the message of political change that this country crying for?
Gandhi has made a belated move, when in a momentum sparking he charged into the Congress Party news conference and called an "ordinance", that was part of an initiative backed by his own party's core group, and that would have granted protections to elected but convicted MPs and MLAs, as "complete nonsense" .
In the hush hush political culture of UPA 2, that runs on vague consensus and muted signals, it was a jaw-dropping act of defiance, in particular when the respected senior Prime Minister Manmohan Singh was on a high-profile visit to Washington.
Has it worked ? It seems yes, as all the Congress Party's old guard cajoled into the talks to decide what to do about Gandhi's sudden misnomer.
Most teams of the media posted themselves alert, and within a day the core group and the law ministry, which spent more than week to get the bill and ordinance ready and subsequently move the bill in the parliament and the ordinance in being presented to the president, took less than half an hour of their discussion time in making it in real "a nonsense step".
The coalition government without wasting time announced in a day that it would withdraw the ordinance because of public opposition (?). Or was it to confirm the projection of Gandhi scoring a crisp political victory?
While the same groups of people took months together in projecting a similar product "Jan Lokpal" bill and than cancelling that to a painful death. Yes agreed, that was not the peak election season.
One spark leads to more fire : why the ordinance was called for cancellation ? The ordinance was a simple substitute for the original bill presented and opted to get it passed in part in parliament then limped to standing committee.
What will be the difference for Rahul ideology , if that would have gone through both the wings of parliament with the support of the allies ? It went rolling on for much longer time than a week, and the "dissenting shout" could also have curtailed the drama from unfolding at that stage itself. Does the facts changed in between ? If not then why now ?
Will not the smarts call it an image projection gimmick ? Let's see how Rahul shapes up from this big step forward taken now,leaps up fast down the election race with Modi, apparently much behind now.