Sunday, May 18, 2014

After Modi's big win, is the Gandhi political dynasty finished in India? --- NEW DELHI — On Friday, as opposition leader Narendra Modi swept to victory and fireworks exploded throughout the capital, the mood at the governing Congress party headquarters was grim. -- Late in the afternoon, the mother and son who lead India’s oldest political dynasty finally emerged to speak to supporters and journalists. -- “There’s a lot for us to think about,” said a chastened Rahul Gandhi, the party’s heir apparent and chief campaigner. “As vice president of the party, I hold myself responsible for what has happened.” -- But then, as he stepped aside to let his mother speak, he smiled — some observers thought with relief. The Twitterverse took note. -- Gandhi, whose lineage includes three prime ministers, had been groomed for India’s top job for a decade. But his evident ambivalence about the prospect was among the drivers of the Indian National Congress party’s worst drubbing in its history, analysts said. The party won just 44 seats in the 543-seat lower house of Parliament, while Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party took 282 in a landslide. -- Even before the Gandhis departed without taking questions, the postmortem had begun: The Congress party was out of touch with voters, analysts said. Its leaders were corrupt and inefficient. And unlike the canny chief minister preparing for his triumphant arrival in the capital, they had missed India’s moment. Even Congress’s own members, still dazed by the scale of the defeat, could see that. -- “India has changed,” said Sachin Pilot, 36, one of the Congress party’s younger leaders, who was defeated Friday in the state of Rajasthan. “The party has failed to connect with the new India of aspirations. We haven’t been able to tap into the imagination of the new India, the youth and the middle classes, the upwardly mobile people. . . . Somewhere our message was not clear, was not appropriate for the new era.” -- The Congress party has governed the country for most of the years since India won its fight for independence from Britain in 1947. Many of its policies today have roots in the vision shaped by the country’s first prime minister, Jawaharlal Nehru — Rahul Gandhi’s great-grandfather — of uplifting the masses. -- Yet, despite that history of political success and its recent 10-year rule, the party seemed woefully unprepared as it headed into the 2014 general election. --- Rahul and his mother, Sonia, the Congress party president, campaigned in their usual way, appearing at large rallies where they emphasized signature subsidy programs such as distribution of wheat and grains to the poor, and talked about rural employment. -- Modi, meanwhile, was spreading his message of economic opportunity via a sophisticated 24-hour campaign operation with millions of volunteers, including many from the Hindu nationalist movement, and teams of technology gurus to manage his wide-ranging social media efforts. --- Some voters said that the Gandhi family seemed elitist and out of touch with the people’s problems. -- “The Congress party used to listen to us, but they no longer do,” said Usha Sharma, 64, a retiree from New Delhi. She said that the Congress party of years gone by would help with jobs but that she lacks running water even now. “There’s no point in voting for them.” -- Rahul Gandhi, in particular, seemed unable to connect with voters, spending much of his time with his nose in his smartphone or going over spreadsheets with his cadre of advisers, many of whom had been educated overseas, party critics said. Many of his efforts to reach younger voters — such as a pilot primary system to make campaigns more egalitarian — failed. It was the 63-year-old Modi, who blogs and tweets, whom India’s more than 100 million first-time voters embraced. -- The stunning defeat has led to a call for the first family’s ouster and to questions about whether the country’s long love affair with dynastic politics is finally over. - More, Annie Gowen and Rama Lakshmi, Washingtonpost

0 Comments:

Post a Comment

<< Home