Rahul Gandhi should thank the shoe that was hurled at him

Branded or not, big or small. It is obvious no one likes a shoe being hurled at them. You disagree with them, hate their guts and shoo them away. Simple.

But there’s a catch. You don’t throw shoes at a corpse. A shoe is thrown at someone who is alive and well. And this is exactly why Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi must be thoroughly pleased with himself after being proverbially shooed away during his roadshow in Sitapur on Monday, which was a part of his month-long kisan yatra in UP. 

The way I see it, that someone thought the Gandhi scion important enough to be hit by a shoe only shows the Congress VP's efforts have finally started to bear fruit. The struggling grand old party appears to be back from the dead, at least for now. What has changed for Rahul? People are coming out in droves to attend his rallies.

That flying piece of footwear stands as a symbol of the Congress' resurgence in the run-up to the 2017 Uttar Pradesh polls. 

This is a major turnaround for a party that was dismissed as an archaic political dynasty in the beginning of this year. The Congress was the butt of all jokes in lengthy discussions at tea-stalls. Journalists and “analysts” had already declared that the UP Assembly elections will be a neck–and–neck contest between the Samajwadi Party and the Bahujan Samaj Party. 

Even an unlucky BJP was seen as a contender under the aegis of Narendra Modi, the man who won the 2014 General Elections for the saffron party. But even the mere utterance of "Congress" was taboo. 

Come summer 2016, with renewed PR and management skills, the Congress seemed a bit more approachable to the common man of Uttar Pradesh. Projecting Sheila Dikshit as their CM face to woo Brahmins was a masterstroke: attract the upper caste and challenge the BJP. Nicely done. On the other hand, Prashant Kishor shrewdly played his hand by deploying party workers at the block level to steadily bring the districts under Congress' control.  

In a way, Rahul Gandhi’s kisan yatra seems to have got the party back on track.

It hardly matters if stolen khats or hurled shoes bring Rahul and his Congress in the limelight. What matters is the final goal: winning UP. Cut to the current scenario in the state: the SP family feud is on, Mayawati’s BSP is trying to keep its members from abandoning the party and the BJP is waiting for its turn. But, it is the Congress that has consistently made good of status quo. 

It’s evident the Congress is desperate. It will hardly be surprising if the entire Gandhi family stormed the streets to save their legacy before the elections. Whether or not Rahul Gandhi’s efforts yield, the Congress seems to be one step ahead of the other political parties longing for Uttar Pradesh.

(Translated from Hindi by Radhika Sharma.)