The baton passes to Rahul

The abrupt exit of Veerappa Moily from the Congress party’s media department on Saturday heralds the arrival of the Rahul Gandhi era in a grand old party. The speed with which the hatchet fell on Moilly is a signal that the days of a benign high command are over now that a blue-blooded Gandhi is in control.

Moily was asked to hand over charge of this all important department to Janardhan Dwivedi after he contradicted the Rahul line on JD(U) leader and Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar, who the Congress is eyeing for post-poll support. On Friday, just four days after Rahul praised Kumar and indicated that he is open to new alliances after the results, Moily lit into Bihar CM and slammed him for polluting his secular politics by allying with the BJP.

Within hours of his televised tirade, Moily was given marching orders and asked to go underground till the election process is over. For the record, the party denied sacking Moily. “He is busy with election duties and I am only acting head of the media department,” maintained Dwivedi at a hurriedly convened press briefing in the evening. But it was clear that this was an attempt at damage control as the election marathon enters its last leg.

Although Rahul has chosen not to project himself in these polls, it is increasingly evident to those in the party that the baton has passed from mother to son. A senior leader acknowledged that Rahul will decide the party’s strategy for government formation after the polls. While Sonia Gandhi, and possibly Priyanka, will be part of the consultation process, Rahul will have the final say on whether to take a shot at forming the government, sit in the opposition or support a Third Front government.

The Rahul stamp on the party has been growing and the turning point was the decision to go ahead with the nuclear deal. It was Rahul who persuaded his reluctant and cautious mother to take a gamble and prove that the party has muscle. He reflected this sentiment at his press conference on Tuesday, when he pointed out that the Congress does what it says, like it did by signing the nuclear deal.

Again, it was Rahul who told his mother to stop waffling on the Maharashtra leadership question after 26/11. He chose Ashok Chavan as the successor to Vilasrao Deshmukh as chief minister.

The Moilly episode is a reminder to those who had got used to Sonia’s softer and more tolerant approach that it is back to the bullish, and often high-handed ways for which both Rajiv and Indira Gandhi were known.