Rahul Gandhi’s hopes of getting his version of “MODI MAGIC,” by replicating the Chai pe charcha seems to have taken a bad hit with his first “Khat pe charcha” being a total disaster. Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi had promised a’karz maafi’ (debt exemption) for distressed farmers provided the party comes to power in the state. But the gathered crowd in the place was too impatient to wait for that. They looted the cots brought in for symbolic purposes soon after Rahul’s grand roadshow launch ceremony ended. Some of them even managed to grab some laddus and water bottles along with the cots.
The manner in which the cots were looted within seconds after Rahul concluded his brief speech, was clearly indicative of the fact that the crowd that had gathered there, were least interested in what Rahul Gandhi had to say. His assurance of loan waiver and reducing electricity bills by half were not given much heed as they were more f focused on looting khats. The khats, all 2,000 of them, were freshly picked from the market.
Khat Pe charcha was one of the most ambitious strategies and Congress was optimistic that this would create a Modi like wave for the party and it’s leader in the state of Uttar Pradesh. The party’s hired external campaign designer Prashant Kishor and Rahul Gandhi himself will now have to check on the possibilities of carrying this idea forward. They will have to decide on the future of this campaign strategy. A drop of this from the campaign plan would mean the failure of this idea, and continuing this would mean more loss of cots for congress. The Congress vice-president, however, aims to cover 2,500-km across 39 districts and 233 assembly constituencies in Uttar Pradesh. This again is proving the point that the Chai pe charcha revolved around the charisma of Narendra Modi and Chai was just a medium to bring in more interest into it. The next move of congress is going to be crucial and will decide the future of the party’s campaign procedure for the state.
