By Sushil Kutty
Wayanad got its Member of Parliament back on Monday, August 7, 2023. The Lok Sabha Secretariat reinstated disqualified Congress MP Rahul Gandhi though there were complaints Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla did not display the same alacrity the Lok Sabha Secretariat had shown when disqualifying Rahul Gandhi after his conviction and sentencing in the Modi surname defamation case. With Rahul Gandhi’s return, the Congress party’s No-Confidence Motion against Prime Minister Narendra Modi gets a significant boost.
The Modi government will be nervous. The Modi government will overcome the No-Confidence Motion but the presence of Rahul Gandhi in the House will be unnerving for the treasury benches, especially when seen in light of allegations that Gandhi’s disqualification was part of a bigger game-plan to remove him from the “scene” as he had become a threat to the Narendra Modi government, especially after his hugely successful ‘Bharat Jodo Yatra’.
With his comeback, the Gandhi scion is expected to roast Prime Minister Modi like few had done, or could do, in Modi’s nearly 10 years in Parliament. Also, with Rahul Gandhi’s return, the Congress is no longer headless, though it has an elected ‘President’, and the rejuvenated leadership will be back to its roaring best.
The last time Rahul Gandhi roasted Prime Minister Narendra Modi, even the treasury benches sat mesmerized. Then, Rahul Gandhi arraigned Modi’s “friend” Gautam Adani in the dock and outlined with Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s helping hand, what all Adani was into – from ports to airports to cement and media et al – all because the friend was a friend in ‘deed’!
That day in the Lok Sabha, Prime Minister Modi lost his shirt and the treasury benches must be dreading a repeat with the No-Confidence Motion now that “RaGa” is back. Monday, some TV news channels were replaying Rahul Gandhi’s decimation of ‘Modani’. The ‘New Rahul Gandhi’ on display after his return from the ranks of the ‘disqualified’ is directly linked to TRP! Prime Minister Modi is finally getting competition; certainly, Modi is no longer the biggest draw in Indian politics and this wasn’t so three-four months ago.
Or, till last year – 2022. Then Rahul Gandhi had started walking and as he walked so he changed, and the Congress changed. The rest of the Opposition waited and the BJP sat up and took notice. They hadn’t expected such a transformation and it worried Modi’s party, BJP. Rahul Gandhi was no longer the BJP IT Cell’s ‘Pappu’.
And after walking 3750 km, from Kanyakumari to Kashmir, there was no stopping Rahul Gandhi, the man with the salt and pepper beard who bearded ‘Modani’ in the Modi government’s den. On August 7, Congress workers in Mumbai’s Azad Maidan celebrated Rahul Gandhi’s return to the Lok Sabha with placards screaming ‘Unstoppable’.
But for days after the Supreme Court undid the conviction, the Congress was impatient, wary and worried that Speaker Om Birla wasn’t showing the same quickness of the fox as witnessed after Rahul Gandhi was convicted! Instead, the Supreme Court’s “good deed” of releasing Rahul Gandhi from the clutches of the ‘Modi clan’ was being wasted with deliberate slowness.
But for how long? The Wayanad parliamentary constituency broke out in celebration on Monday. It was a miracle after the doubts over whether Rahul Gandhi would ever make a triumphant comeback? The Muslim-dominated Wayanad parliamentary constituency is staunchly Rahul Gandhi and it looked like somebody would replace Rahul Gandhi – perhaps, Priyanka Vadra Gandhi. That emergency no longer exists and Kerala will remain a Gandhi family political bastion.
Now, for Rahul Gandhi to return to his official MP residence after 135 days in the political wilderness. Congress President Mallikarjun Kharge said the Congress is relieved. Gandhi was given a rousing welcome by Congress and other opposition MPs. Gandhi sat in the People’s House and is expected to take some of the shine Prime Minister Narendra Modi has been hogging for nine years and after Gandhi’s disqualification. The No-Confidence Motion against Prime Minister Narendra Modi promises to be edge of the seat stuff with Rahul Gandhi’s presence and Congress MPs particularly will be fired up. Gandhi’s reinstatement will go a long way in impacting the upcoming assembly elections and the 2024 general elections. Opposition alliance ‘INDIA’ is in high spirits. The BJP will be wondering how close it was! (IPA Service)
The post Rahul Gandhi Is Finally Back In Lok Sabha Before No Confidence Motion first appeared on Latest India news, analysis and reports on IPA Newspack.
