Rahul Gandhi has taken a stringent stand against the proposed law to remove a Prime Minister, Chief Minister or any other minister if s/he remains in jail for one month. Gandhi and his party oppose everything that the Bharatiya Janata Party government does. But in this case, he appears to have committed undue haste in coming out with a reaction. Same like he did in 2013 when he tore down an ordinance that would provide a three-month breather for any lawmaker if convicted of any crime. In 2013 Rahul took a stringent stand against corruption. Today he is seen to be taking a contrarian position.
The story goes like this. Lalu Prasad Yadav, a staunch ally of the Congress, was about to be convicted in the first of the five cases the CBI was probing against him in the mega fodder scam. The verdict was to come on September 30, 2013. However, on September 25, the United Progressive Alliance government headed by Dr Manmohan Singh issued an ordinance that would allow the convicted MPs and MLAs to hold to their positions till their appeals were pending. The aim of the ordinance was too obvious to be missed by anyone. Lalu’s support was crucial for the survival of the UPA government and it decided to protect him from an imminent conviction.
However, in what was presented to be a spontaneous moment of reaction, Rahul Gandhi, then an MP and also general secretary of the party, addressed a press conference at the Press Club of India, New Delhi, opposing the ordinance saying that the ordinance was “complete nonsense” and must be torn down and thrown away.
Manish Tewari, the then union Minister of Information and Broadcasting, as a spokesman of the government, was strongly defending the ordinance from the PIB podium in the Shastri Bhawan, just above the Press Club of India at the same time. While he was addressing a press conference, he didn’t know that Rahul had opposed and “torn down” the ordinance. It was not just Tewari, who was taken unawares, but the entire UPA government.
This came as a shock not only to the UPA government, but Prime Minister Dr Singh in particular. Questions are still being raised as to why he tolerated that humiliation by Rahul and why he did not resign over it. Or may be Rahul’s “spontaneous” act of “tearing down” the ordinance was well planned and executed in a manner that it looked exclusively his idea. It served a dual purpose. The UPA government ended up “taking a high moral ground”, while ensuring its survival as well despite Lalu Yadav getting disqualified.
Twelve years have passed since Rahul “tore down” that ordinance thus shutting all the doors for Lalu Prasad Yadav to continue as an MP or contest again. Twelve years in politics is certainly a long time. For a while he was recognised as a hope against corruption as the second term of the UPA government was marred by serious allegations and reports of scams like the 2G scam and the Commonwealth Games scam.
Fast forward to 2025. Today, Lalu’s RJD and Rahul’s Congress are “close alliance” partners, obviously for the main reason to challenge the BJP, which in alliance with the Janta Dal-United of Nitish Kumar has not allowed the RJD to come back to power in Bihar. Enemy’s enemy is naturally a friend. Both the Congress as well as the RJD have the common enemy in the BJP.
Obviously, Rahul Gandhi and Tejashwi Yadav are making an impressive combo in Bihar these days. Both inherit strong political legacies. Currently on a mission to retrieve Bihar from Nitish Kumar and the Bharatiya Janata Party, Gandhi and Yadav seem to be quite inseparable, almost “made for each other” politically, at least for now. Tejashwi appears to have wilfully forgotten that if his father was thrown into political exile, it was because of Rahul. But as long as aligning with Rahul serves his purpose of getting to power in Bihar, he can ignore what happened to his father.
After his first conviction in the fodder scam on September 30, 2013, Lalu Yadav was sentenced to five years in jail. He was also disqualified as an MP and further barred from contesting any elections in future. It was virtually an inglorious and sudden end to Lalu Yadav’s political career during which he had not only ruled Bihar for about two decades, but also called the shots in the UPA government between 2004 and 2013, till his conviction and imprisonment.
It is an irony that his son Tejashwi is now clinging on to the same Rahul Gandhi, who 12 years ago, took a stand that put a full stop on Lalu Yadav’s political career. And it is going to be a tall order for Tejashwi to retrieve and redeem the legacy of his father.
Even for Rahul it is sort of a U-turn that he is aligning with the same party, against whose leaders he took a stand, which that time was touted as a “moral and principled stand” against corruption.
And Rahul’s compulsions are the same as those of Tejashwi—to retrieve and redeem a lost legacy against all odds, by hook or by crook. Even if it means embracing those against whom you once took a “principled stand” on moral grounds.
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