Random Talk: Why Nobody Listens to Clueless Rahul Gandhi

Naive Rahul Gandhi must understand that if he wants to implement some advice of the experts, he must win elections by hook or by crook like Modi and his party BJP have been doing.

By Rakesh Raman

Rahul Gandhi – the former-cum-future president of India’s defunct opposition party Congress – has embarked on a new pastime to have virtual interactions with people who claim to be some experts in their domains.

After his recent talk with former Reserve Bank of India (RBI) Governor Raghuram Rajan, today (May 5) Gandhi roped in Nobel Laureate Abhijit Banerjee for an online discussion on India’s economy during and after the coronavirus (COVID-19) lockdown.

As expected, it was a directionless event that went in all directions without giving any practical solution to deal with the ongoing crisis. Since Gandhi is neither an economist nor a successful politician, he failed miserably to keep the discussion on track.

The fault also lies with his communication skills, as Gandhi can’t speak even a single sentence without fumbling and floundering. He does not know how to frame and structure his questions for an effective Q&A session. Unfortunately, there is no other Congress leader who understands the fundamentals of mass communications and who could guide Gandhi.

The random discussion between Gandhi and Banerjee was about some unsolicited advice for the Indian government to achieve economic recovery. It was such a crass advice of giving money to idle citizens that no government would accept it.

Moreover, Rahul Gandhi simply failed to comprehend a simple fact that even if his guest’s advice is meaningful, it will fall on deaf ears because Prime Minister (PM) Narendra Modi does not believe in taking any advice.

Modi prefers to work either as an autocrat or a religious sect leader who would ask his blind followers to burn candles or hit their kitchen utensils to deal with the coronavirus crisis instead of working on any advice given by domain experts.

While India has become a global epicenter of the coronavirus infection, Modi knows how to hoodwink the gullible Indians by sharing fake disease data with them. Modi has no interest in saving lives or saving the economy because no opposition party – including Congress – can defeat him in the next 2024 election.

Naive Rahul Gandhi must understand that if he wants to implement some advice of the experts, he must win elections by hook or by crook like Modi and his party BJP have been doing.

As he is also a clueless communicator, Gandhi should never lead any discussion or hold any interaction with the media. As a reluctant politician, Gandhi could never conclude any of his past campaigns against the Modi government.

These include the failed campaigns in the Rafale corruption case, banking frauds, loot in the demonetization scheme, and the Delhi violence that killed more than 50 people – mostly Muslims – in February.

Even now when Modi is collecting huge funds under a dubious “Prime Minister’s Citizen Assistance and Relief in Emergency Situations Fund (PM CARES Fund)” in the name of fighting coronavirus, Congress has no plan to stop the possible misappropriation of public money.

Also, Congress has no remedy to protect people from Modi government’s extreme excesses including illegal detentions of Modi’s opponents, false cases against people, communal hatred that results in lynching, and so on while the police and the judiciary are complicit in most crimes.

With such a dismal performance, Rahul Gandhi should not expect people to trust him and vote for his party. Nobody is interested in his closed-door confabulation because it cannot address people’s real-life miseries inflicted by the Modi government.

By Rakesh Raman, who is a national award-winning journalist and social activist. He is the founder of a humanitarian organization RMN Foundation which is working in diverse areas to help the disadvantaged and distressed people in the society.

He also creates and publishes a number of digital publications and research reports on different subjects. These publications include the “Covid Health Bulletin” that covers global coronavirus news and views.