Rahul Gandhi: Is this the end of the Gandhi dynasty?

Pedro_P

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▼ On Thursday when Indian PM Narendra Modi won a landslide victory in the Indian elections, Rahul Gandhi, the scion of the Nehru-Gandhi dynasty and leader of India's Congress party, emerged at the other end, battered and mauled.
He had been hit with a double whammy - his Congress party won just over 50 seats against the 300 plus that Mr Modi's BJP got; and if that was not bad enough, he also lost his own seat in the family bastion of Amethi in Uttar Pradesh.
He will still sit in the parliament though because this time he contested from a second seat - Wayanad in Kerala - which he won. But Amethi was a prestige battle - it was the seat from where both his parents - Sonia and Rajiv Gandhi - had contested and won in the past and he himself had held it for the past 15 years.
He is also part of the ultimate political dynasty. His great-grandfather, Jawaharlal Nehru, was the first and longest-serving prime minister of India. His grandmother, Indira Gandhi, was the first female prime minister of the country, and his father was India's youngest prime minister.
Not many were expecting an outright win for the Congress, but they were definitely expected to do better. That's why Thursday's results have come as a surprise to many inside and outside the party.
On Thursday evening, Mr Gandhi addressed a press conference in Delhi where he conceded the election to Mr Modi saying the people had given their mandate and chosen the BJP and took full responsibility for the Congress party's defeat.
And even though counting was not over in Amethi with more than 300,000 votes yet to be counted, he conceded the constituency to BJP's Smriti Irani who was leading at the time with just over 30,000 votes.
"I want to congratulate her. She has won, it's a democracy and I respect the decision of people," he said.
Refusing to give further details about the Congress performance or what would come next, Mr Gandhi said it would all be discussed in the meeting of the Congress Working Committee, the party's top decision-making body.
He also told the Congress workers, the ones who lost and the ones who won, not to lose hope. "There is no need to be afraid. We will continue to work hard and we will eventually win."
Uttar Pradesh is the state considered the ground zero of Indian politics. It's generally believed that whoever wins India's most populous state, rules the country.
Eight of 14 Indian prime ministers - including Mr Gandhi's great grandfather, grandmother and father - were from the state, which elects the largest number of MPs - 80 out of a 545-member lower house. PM Narendra Modi, who's originally from Gujarat, also chose Uttar Pradesh to make his debut as an MP in 2014 when he contested from the ancient city of Varanasi.
At the Congress office here, the future victory that Mr Gandhi promised seemed like a distant dream to the handful of despondent party workers, glued to a TV screen, watching the bloodbath unfold as several party veterans lost their seats.
"Our credibility is very low. People have no faith in our promises. They are not trusting what we are saying," one party official who didn't want to be named told me.
"Mr Modi failed to fulfil the commitments he made, but people still believe him."
I ask him why?  (▪ ▪ ▪)

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warlikeprince

I don't think so. Because Congress is big party but it always need Gandhi scion to lead it. Yes it can happen that Mr. Gandhi may take strong decisions for time being to get away from party and make party realise his importance...