Yes, after Mamata Banerjee shoved her mettle into the ring, earlier this month, with a vintage tour of New Delhi including Parliament, it was the turn of Rahul Gandhi to pitch in his hat. The good news is that the electorate has more candidates to pick and choose from to replace Modi. It has rattled Modi-branded politicians, perpetual prime ministerial candidates like Nitish Kumar, whose cronies have spread the word that Nitish hasn’t stopped dreaming!

Shiv Sena Rajya Sabha MP Sanjay Raut wants Uddhav Thackeray to be the chosen heir, even if the Maharashtra CM is an outlier. People are laughing off that “Raut”, but the bet is out in the open that you can’t laugh off Rahul Gandhi’s chances. The Congress leader has changed, “matured”, say admirers. We’ve seen many Rahul pictures, but the ones of him at the “August 3 breakfast meeting” cannot be laughed away or be winked at.

“Rahul Gandhi Tuesday took his attempts to rally the Opposition together one step further”, said a national newspaper. “By chairing a breakfast meeting with leaders and MPs of like-minded parties.” Political pundits noted with satisfaction that Congress president Sonia Gandhi wasn’t in the picture. Was the Congress signalling that Rahul Gandhi was the “Boss”, no question? That he’s not the reluctant ‘Yuvraj’.

Maybe Jyotiraditya Scindia’s single-minded pursuit of happiness had rubbed on Rahul Gandhi. After all both are Doon School alumni. Could be that Jyotiraditya Scindia not being at his perpetual side finally set Rahul free? Didn’t matter for the Congress, so long Rahul continues to be the leader of the Opposition, and rallies opposition parties to take on the Modi Government.

The “day-after” reports say that the “breakfast meeting” was Rahul’s brainchild, “carefully planned” and executed, that over a 100 members of Parliament of 15 parties attended. The cycle rally to Parliament after the breakfast meeting was touted as a “surprise’, but it was more than apparent that it, too, was part and parcel. Getting hold of 100 bicycles at the turn of a coin is not an easy impromptu, a surprise.

The bonus that came with the breakfast and the cycle rally was that the participants agreed to coordinate their Pegasus protests in Parliament, which is more bad news for the Modi Government and the BJP. The better news is that it’s got the Prime Minister rattled. Republic TV’s Arnab Goswami August 3 night let the cat out of the bag: Prime Minister Narendra Modi is “furious”, he railed.

Maybe Modi had to deal with an upset stomach after Rahul’s breakfast meet with the 100-plus MPs at his side. Before West Bengal, Rahul was mostly contained in Wayanad, seen fooling around with schoolgirls, doing push-ups and generally having a good time, which probably got the BJP’s goat because it wasn’t “bhaiyon aur behno, mitron” at the podium.

That apart, the farm laws and the farmers’ protests were having a debilitating effect on the BJP and the Modi Government. People point out that if anybody kept Modi on his toes and never let go the accusation ‘Chowkidar Chor Hai’ go to waste, it was Rahul Gandhi. Mamata Banerjee says ‘Khela Hobe’ will reverberate all-India, but 2024 will be fought on the assertion that the “khela” has already been “hobe” – on Rafale and Pegasus, and the three farm laws, the farmers’ protests.

No wonder, then, that Rahul Gandhi declared that “Tuesday, August 3, 2021” was a “historic day”, the trailer before “2024”, picture “abhi baaki hai!” There was a video prepared to go with the dialogue: “We represent 60 per cent of the voice of this country… and we are treated as if we represent nobody. When the government shuts us up in Parliament, humiliates us… not just humiliating us as Members of Parliament… they are humiliating and shutting up the voice of the people of India, and the majority of the voice of India.”

Finally! It has sunk into Rahul Gandhi that Modi is ruling on the strength of 37 per cent of the vote; that 60 per cent did not vote BJP/Modi, “so let’s consolidate the 60 per cent behind us”, the operative word being “us” – “opposition unity” the key to the treasury benches, and the treasury! “The more this voice unites, the more powerful this voice will become and more difficult it will become for the BJP to suppress it, and the RSS to suppress it.”

Call it the “Mamata Effect”. If Rahul Gandhi has indeed “matured”, he should keep Mamata in the loop and never forget that there is out there media which are besotted with Modi, not just dismiss them as “Godi Media”, creatures of compulsion. Don’t forget that Modi got elected 2014 with 31 per cent of the vote; then it rose to 37 per cent, and that percentage is only rising. It’s not for nothing that even the left parties are holding up pictures of “Lord Ram”.

Last but not least, there are opposition parties and leaders who were missing at Rahul’s breakfast spread. But there’s time; lots of hard work to be done, too. But then nothing comes for free, there’s never any free lunch, these days not even in the Parliament Canteen! (IPA Service)