New Delhi: On his recent journey from Delhi to Shimla on May 23, Congress leader Rahul Gandhi suddenly hopped on a transport truck. On his way to meet his mother Sonia Gandhi and sister Priyanka Gandhi at the latter’s farmhouse near Shimla, Gandhi stopped at a dhaba in Haryana’s Murthal – a village known for its highway eateries – where he met a few truck drivers who had stopped for dinner. Soon, Gandhi pulled himself into one of the moving trucks and made his way into the eight-wheeler’s backseat. For another 250-odd kilometres to Chandigarh, Gandhi engaged with the truck driver to learn about his problems and the perennial issues that Indian truck drivers face on interstate highways. Rahul Gandhi took lift from a truck driver. pic.twitter.com/Xi3lWQKljM— Vikas Singh Sai (@vikassinghsai) May 23, 2023A short video of the event posted by the Congress spokesperson Supriya Shirinate on Twitter went viral the next day. The interaction with truck drivers was the latest in the series of similar unannounced interactions with diverse groups by the Congress leader over the last two months. In this period, he has met Delhi university students in their hostel, sportspersons, civil service aspirants in Delhi IAS coaching hub Mukherjee Nagar and Rajendra Nagar, farmers, delivery partners, and passengers in a public bus in Bengaluru – all in small, unorchestrated set-ups. In a way, these interactions have appeared to be an extension of similar meetings that he had with people across regions during the Bharat Jodo Yatra last year. Shrinate accorded a special significance to these interactions. “Why is Rahul Gandhi interacting with all such people? Because, he wants to hear the voice of the people of the country, he wants to hear about the challenges that they face and he wants to understand their problems,” she said.“Looking at him doing all this poses a confidence among people that at least there is someone who is standing with them to make their lives better and to sacrifice his own life for their cause. Gradually, it is being felt that the country wants to return to the path of love and peace. Be it slowly, but the country has started to walk with Rahul Gandhi,” she added. Call it yet another photo-op or an earnest effort to reach out to diverse groups, these informal events surely mark a significant departure from the way Gandhi has hitherto communicated with people. Gandhi has often been a subject of the BJP IT cell’s ridicule; he has also had to face accusations of being a non-serious politician because of some of his goof-ups. In the face of such frequent attacks, Gandhi appeared to have cocooned himself in a cushioned zone. He has often come across as a shy, although stoic, public personality – in sharp contrast to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who has mastered larger-than-life image-building skills.However, a sudden spurt in the number of creative, cinematographic videos around him that include unconventional interviews, speeches, intimate conversations with people, and spontaneous gatherings over the past few months is slowly transforming the way he has been perceived in the last several years. Since the Bharat Jodo Yatra, subscribers to Gandhi’s official YouTube channel have tripled, his viewership hitting a good 50 million views with 15 million new unique visitors tuning in the month of May 2023. More than 600 million people viewed his channel during the Bharat Jodo Yatra, with some Congress workers projecting the views to be more than a billion if one includes other party platforms on social media. Similarly, his Instagram engagement has almost doubled since the Yatra, increasing at a rapid rate daily.His videos have been more intimate. In most of them, he is seen interacting with different groups in their own spaces. Unlike Modi, his videos are not about large-scale events and spectacular posturing, but involve an element of surprise and rawness. Two of his videos – one in which he made a surprise visit to a Delhi University hostel and interacted with the university Proctor and other residents and the other in which the Congress leader during his Karnataka campaign is seen riding a public transport bus and conversing with a Kannada-speaking elderly woman in a Bengaluru – hit more than three million views, forcing a majority of mainstream television media to cover the events. Gandhi appears to have adopted a communication strategy that not only showcases how he is perceived as a person but is also resolute in foregrounding the three biggest concerns – unemployment, crony capitalism-induced corruption, and rising inequalities – that he has been raising as an opposition leader. He has been ably aided by the energetic communications team, led by senior Congress leader Jairam Ramesh and his deputies Pawan Khera and Supriya Shrinate, which too has been effective in its tenacious pursuit of Congress’s attacks on the Modi government.A Congress worker who is closely associated with Gandhi told The Wire that the idea behind strengthening the party’s platforms came from Gandhi himself around two years ago. “Rahul Gandhi always wanted to eliminate the middlemen – in this case traditional media outlets, which have been dogged in restricting their space and time for opposition leaders,” the worker said. “Gandhi always believed that he and the Congress would have to set their own narrative, and that could be done only through building our own robust media platforms which functioned like a media company,” he said.He further said that Gandhi also has plans to disseminate authentic information through his and the party’s channels in the run-up to the Lok Sabha polls, and ultimately become big enough to be seen by a majority of people – in circumstances where the party could have a continued poor-run in securing airtime of traditional media outlets.Congress leader Rahul Gandhi waves at supporters during the ‘Bharat Jodo Yatra’, in Nuh district, Thursday, December 22, 2022. Photo: PTIOne of the Congress workers who is a part of Gandhi’s social media team said that he believes that Gandhi’s surging popularity on social media is because “he is not the content.” “His message, ideas, and personality traits are the content. That hits a chord with viewers. He shows who he is, and doesn’t try to hide anything. He doesn’t glorify himself like Modi,” the Congress worker said. “Our aim is that when people come to his platforms, they should be able to understand what he stands for. The mainstream media has always misrepresented him. Our plan has been in the works for around 18 months now but our efforts are showing only now. Gandhi’s approval ratings shot up from 27% to nearly 40% after the Bharat Jodo Yatra,” he said. The Bharat Jodo Yatra has indeed rejuvenated the party ranks in taking up different challenges. The social media campaigns by Gandhi and the Congress over the last year were slickly mounted. More recently, these videos did play a big part in setting the agenda for the Congress in the run-up to the Karnataka elections. Gandhi’s media team already has its target fixed for now. “We are now aiming to get 200 million views for Gandhi’s YouTube and Instagram channels by the 2024 Lok Sabha polls,” the Congress worker said.
