Context
That Clip Of Rahul Gandhi Is Bad Optics For Congress; And Optics Mean A Lot
Rahul Gandhi in Kathmandu nightclub (Twitter)
Former Congress president and Wayanad MP, Rahul Gandhi, has gone viral again. In a video posted by a Nepali citizen on Facebook, he is seen in a pub located in Kathmandu, Nepal.
Not the First Time: Gandhi is known for his jet-setting lifestyle.
In December 2021, Rahul Gandhi flew out of the country just before the Congress was to kickstart its Punjab campaign. Congress lost the state and saw its entire state leadership getting wiped off in the elections.
Before the winter session of the Parliament, in November 2021, he went MIA for almost a month.
On Congress’s 136th Foundation Day, Rahul Gandhi travelled to Italy, leaving his party to explain his absence.
Bad Optics: On the surface, a political leader attending a private function should not raise an eyebrow. But Rahul Gandhi’s frequent vacations highlight the hypocrisy of the Congress itself.
Congress has been at the forefront of questioning PM Narendra Modi’s official foreign tours and attacking him for his sartorial choices, or personal life.
Rahul Gandhi continues to project himself as the messiah of the poor and label Narendra Modi as the one hobnobbing with the rich, the leader leading a ‘suit-boot ki sarkaar’.
His recent video harms the image that Congress has tried to build of a prince-in-exile fighting the good fight.
Doubts on Secrecy of Foreign Visits: Most of the trips Rahul Gandhi takes are shrouded in secrecy.
In 2019, Union Home Minister, Amit Shah, had informed the Parliament that Rahul Gandhi travelled abroad 247 times between 2015 and 2019, without informing the SPG.
The viral video raises doubts about the company Congress's top leadership keeps on their foreign visits. YSR Congress Rajya Sabha MP Vijayasai Reddy raised serious charges about the same in a tweet.
Bottom line: Living two lives served the Nehru-Gandhi family well in the past. Having leverage over the media helped too. But, in the age of smartphones and social media, keeping up the act was always going to be difficult.
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