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Strategies & Market Trends : India Coffee House -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Nandu who wrote (5799)	8/24/1999 9:16:00 AM
From: Cynic 2005	Respond to of 12475

Disquiet in Cong. over projection of Rahul By Harish Khare New DELHI, AUG. 23. A discernible sense of unease is creeping on Congressmen over the party president, Ms. Sonia Gandhi's attempt to project her son, Mr. Rahul Gandhi, as an additional family mascot. Mr. Rahul Gandhi had accompanied his mother yesterday to election rallies in Tamil Nadu and today he went with her to Andhra Pradesh. Though no Congressman dare go on record on what is clearly a sensitive matter for the party leadership, they do concede that this ''flaunting'' of Mr. Rahul Gandhi does not go down well. Serious Congressmen believe that the country is not well disposed towards ''dynasty rule'' and they are not exactly thrilled over the all too visible prominent billing that young Rahul Gandhi is getting at Mrs. Gandhi's campaign meetings. Besides his mother, he alone get the privilege of acknowledging the crowds' greeting in the manner, to use Ms. Maneka Gandhi's rather unkind remark, of a windshield wiper. And the Pradesh Congress leaders can always be expected to be obsequious to the young Rahul, signalling the return on the ''dynasty''. It is perhaps a coincidence that the Union Home Minister and senior BJP leader, Mr. L.K. Advani, today accused the Congress of resurrecting the ''dynasty rule'' and asserted that the country would reject any such attempt. For the record, the AICC functionaries reject Mr. Advani's insinuation, and remind one and all that during the last Lok Sabha poll in 1998 the young Gandhi had accompanied his mother during the campaign. Interestingly enough the Congress leaders, senior and middle level, do not detect any ''negatives'' in Ms. Priyanka Gandhi. They think that Ms. Gandhi's daughter looks Indian, speaks flawless Hindi, and generally sparkles in public; by contrast, the son has a wooden expression, speaks rather poor Hindi and has more an European look than an Indian look. ''It is the Karan Kapoor syndrome,'' observed a Congressman, referring to the son of cine star, Mr. Shashi Kapoor, and his English wife, Jennifer Kennedell. (Mr. Karan Kapoor was not accepted an Indian hero in the Hindi film industry.) In a recent television interview, Ms. Sonia Gandhi had conceded that both her children were deeply curious about politics. It is no more a secret that the daughter gets to vet the Hindi speeches and the son vets the drafts of the speeches written in English. Then, the children are ipso facto free to get interested in any part of the campaign. For example, a few weeks ago, Mr. Kamal Nath was proudly telling everyone how he spent an hour discussing ''media strategy'' with the young Rahul. But the most unuttered yet very relevant concern for Congressmen is the signal Mr. Rahul Gandhi's presence in the Sonia Gandhi road sends out in these republican times. Congressmen themselves are not excited at the prospect of making the Congress a closed shop for the Nehru-Gandhi family. hinduonline.com