Rebuilding Congress to challenge Modi- a big task for Rahul Gandhi

Rahul Gandhi took over as Congress president today from his mother Sonia Gandhi, who led India's oldest party for 19 years.

For him, getting elected as the Congress president is easy, but leading the party hands-on and getting accepted as a convincing challenger to Prime Minister Narendra Modi is a more difficult proposition.

While his elevation as Congress chief would herald the dawn of a new era in the party which has ruled the country for over half-a-century since independence, the 47-year-old scion of the Nehru-Gandhi family will face the daunting task of restoring lost glory to the party whose fortunes have been dwindling in the recent past.

Rahul will now be held accountable directly for all the failures which are bound to come given the state of the Congress in electoral politics.

Rahul Gandhi will have to rebuild his team of advisors to deal with the challenges. The good thing is that Rahul Gandhi has already put people enjoying his confidence in several state units as PCC chiefs and also as the general secretaries of the AICC.

However, it is too early to say whether a Rahul presidency will make a difference to the party which suffered its worst defeat in the 2014 elections, reduced to a historic low of 44 seats in the Lok Sabha, followed by successive defeats in the state elections which confirmed the existential crisis facing the party.

The present crisis in the grand-old party is far worse than anything the Congress has confronted in its 132-year history. Rahul actually faces more difficult than what Sonia Gandhi faced when she took over as the president of the Indian National Congress in 1998.

Here we take a look at the challenges Rahul Gandhi will face:

Fight against PM Modi

As Congress president, Rahul Gandhi will take on Narendra Modi. The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has won successive elections across the country in the name of Modi. Such is the might of the Modi wave that it even wrested power from the Congress in its traditional stronghold of Assam. Rahul's big challenge will be to fight this Modi wave.

Rebuild the party

Rahul's biggest challenge is rebuilding the Congress organisation which is almost non-existent in the states. The party is a much depleted organisation in need of a complete revamp; it is bereft of a dedicated cadre of grassroots workers who can fight the formidable RSS/BJP election machine.

Within the party, Gandhi has to take several decisions, including whether to project chief ministerial candidates in poll-bound Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh and Rajasthan and who they are going to be.

Assembly elections

The outcome of the Gujarat polls would be interpreted in terms of Rahul Gandhi's ability as a "campaigner and vote-getter".

The next round of assembly polls in 2018 -- first in Karnataka and later in Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh will be very crucial for Gandhi in order to build the momentum to take on Prime Minister Narendra Modi in the Lok Sabha polls.

Inexperience

Another big hurdle for Rahul Gandhi is his inexperience as an administrator. He has not held any position in previous Congress governments. That's why no one knows how will he perform if ever elected to power. And also, how he can convince people that he could be a better choice for the PM post than Narendra Modi, who has proved his mettle both as a politician and an administrator.

On the other hand, Rahul is shown to be a slow and somewhat reluctant learner in the school of politics. Even after 13 long years of apprenticeship, the Gandhi scion is found wanting in leadership.

Balancing the young and senior

Rahul Gandhi has to strike a balance between the young and senior leaders. In several states, the Congress units are witnessing a power tussle between young Congress faces and the old guard.

Some instances are Sachin Pilot versus Ashok Gehlot in Rajasthan, Jyotiraditya Scindia versus Digvijaya Singh in Madhya Pradesh and Ajay Maken versus Sheila Dikshit in Delhi.

It remains to be seen how much of a difference Rahul Gandhi's leadership will make to the Congress party which suffered its worst defeat in the 2014 elections and which reduced the party to a historic low of 44 seats in the Lok Sabha.

OneIndia News (with agency inputs)