Ashok Gehlot will be the chief minister of Rajasthan for the third time, and Kamal Nath the chief minister of Madhya Pradesh, was the AICC announcement ending a tense two-day long dialogue-discussion-decision making exercise with Congress president Rahul Gandhi at its centre.
Gandhi's first big test began on Wednesday afternoon, when he had to name the chief ministers of Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan, where his party won by a very slender margin. By Friday evening he passed muster. He acted on what he had said a little after he took over as vice-president of the Congress, in the face of the party elders wondering whether he would dump them. “We need the energies of the youth and the experience of the seniors” was what he said.
His father, late prime minister Rajiv Gandhi's contemporaries Kamal Nath and Ashok Gehlot were named chief ministers of Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan respectively. His own buddy, Sachin Pilot has bagged the office of Deputy Chief Minister of Rajasthan. And Jyotiraditya Scindia, another close buddy, is likely to be given an important office in the All India Congress Committee.
Rahul has struck a grand balance between the youth full of energy and seniors with experience in “the art of the possible”—the classical definition of politics. And thus lived up to his promise of many many months ago.
It could not have been easy, for he had counted on the youthful “Rahul Brigade” to rebuild and rejuvenate the Congress after its worst electoral debacle in the summer of 2014 when it was reduced to 44 in Lok Sabha. And the victory in substantial measure must be theirs.
How he managed to placate Scindia and Pilot, will be Rahul's shining moment. Even though the party observers had gone to Bhopal and Jaipur and assessed the views of the newly elected legislators and conveyed them to Rahul, the party chief was cloistered with Sindia, Pilot, Kamal Nath and Gehlot, separately.
All this happened as television blared scenes of Gujars taking to the streets in Rajasthan to throw their weight behind Pilot, and supporters of the former royal backing Scindia. Inside Rahul's house, two young leaders put up a very strong case and a tough fight for the chief ministership of the states.
What emerged after those testing moments were pictures of Rahul being flanked by a smiling Pilot on one side and Gehlot on the other. Similar visuals of him with Kamal Nath and Scindia made it to prime time and front pages.
In naming the seniors for the post, Rahul may have played it safe given that he needs the veterans' experience in the run up to the 2019 Lok Sabha elections—when friends across parties, ability to manage politics that continues to be old world in most pockets, and a number of other qualities that come with long years in the field, will be at a premium. Because the rebuilding of the Congress has been done by the young leaders, they have been given all the honour that is due to them. This was necessary as much to assuage their followers as the two leaders themselves.
But even before the Lok Sabha elections, experience would be needed in Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan, where stability cannot be taken for granted. While the Congress is the largest party in both the states, they have not crossed the half way mark to get a simple majority on their own. And to retain their hold on the states which they have wrested from the BJP after a very close fight, Rahul knew he had to focus on just that.
The young Congress president has also cleared the doubts that the veterans may have had about their own future in the party.
Rahul Gandhi, who took his own time before showing an inclination for the top job in the party, should know from experience, that waiting is worth the time.