Image makeover for Rahul Gandhi but will Congress gain from his yatra?

New Delhi: The nationwide Bharat Jodo Yatra may have helped former Congress president Rahul Gandhi in his image makeover but the question is whether it will benefit the grand old party electorally.

In its initial phase, the yatra had no impact on the outcome of the just-concluded assembly elections in Gujarat and Himachal Pradesh.

The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) retained Gujarat for another term but it couldn't beat the anti-incumbency in Himachal Pradesh and lost it to the Congress in keeping with the tradition of the hill state where no incumbent government has retained power for decades now.

Will Bharat Jodo Yatra benefit Congress?

However, the first real electoral test of the yatra will take place in Karnataka where the assembly polls are due in March-April this year. The yatra travelled across Karnataka for 24 days from September 30 to October 23, and it got a good response there with both former chief minister Siddaramaiah and state unit chief DK Shivakumar burying their hatchet to showcase a united party in the southern state ahead of the polls. It now remains to be seen if that response translates into votes for Congress in the upcoming elections.

Apart from Karnataka, the other states going to polls in March-April are Tripura, Meghalaya and Nagaland.

Then in November-December, assembly elections will be held in five states – Mizoram, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Telangana and Chhattisgarh. These will be semi-finals before the finals (Lok Sabha elections) in April-May next year.

Coming back to Rahul Gandhi, he is now being described as a 'tapasvi (ascetic)' and his walk in the chilly winter days wearing a T-shirt has become the talk of the town and a key subject of debate in the media.

But he has a reason for doing that.

"One day three poor children in torn clothes came to me during the yatra in Madhya Pradesh. When I held them, they were shivering as they were not wearing proper clothes. On that day, I made a decision that till the time I do not shiver, I will only wear a T-shirt," he said.

Asked by a journalist how the yatra had changed his image, Rahul Gandhi said he had "killed Rahul Gandhi" and was not bothered about his image.

"Rahul Gandhi is in your mind. I have killed him. He is not there. Not in my mind at all. He's gone. Gone," he said in Haryana on Sunday.

"The person you are looking at is not Rahul Gandhi. You can see him. You don't understand it...Read Hindu scriptures. Read about Shiv-ji (Lord Shiva), and you will understand. Don't be shocked. Rahul Gandhi is in your head, not mine. He is in the BJP's head, not mine," he went on.

Rahul Gandhi may have sounded philosophical but he was clearly addressing his target audience. The broader idea is to correct the perceived image of him.

Whether the yatra achieves that, only time will tell.