As AICC general secretary Rahul Gandhi seeks to capture the imagination of the Gen Next with his out-of-the-box and somewhat iconoclastic approach to politics and governance, the 124-year-old Indian National Congress, it seems, is finding it difficult to keep in step.

Last week, Rahul’s attribution of Naxalism to lack of development and states’ inability to reach out to people, for instance, only reiterated the Congress’s long-held stance on this issue that invariably bracketed the law and order aspect with socio-economic problems at its roots. The party’s thinking was often encapsulated by Sonia Gandhi’s description of Naxalites as “misguided youth”.

Barely 48 hours after Rahul pronounced the party line on this issue, the Congress made a significant shift de-coupling the law and order aspect from the socio-economic aspect and recommending “firm” action against those who believe in violence “and nothing else”.

Again, days after the Congress expressed outrage against Union Minister Shashi Tharoor for his defiance of the party’s diktat on austerity by staying in a five-star hotel and then ridiculing it on Twitter by his infamous cattle class remark, Tharoor got succour from unexpected quarters. Last Wednesday, Rahul declared in Thiruvananthapuram, “Shashi Tharoorji is a Minister of State also. So, he has to also spend a lot of time in travelling. So, it is bit unfair to say you know he comes, at times, on computer. I have spoken to him a couple of times between and after the elections and I get a sense that he is working hard for the country.”

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