Florine Roche

Mangaluru, Jul 22: Indian twitterati went berserk following the infamous hug which Congress President Rahul Gandhi forced upon Prime Minister Narendra Modi during the debate on the no confidence motion on July 20. The picture of Rahul hugging Modi, who was taken by surprise, nonetheless looks ‘awkward’. However, it provided the best fodder for the twitterati to come out with some of the finest and entertaining one-liners, jokes and memes. While some called it Rahul’s ‘Priya Warrier moment’, Amul, known for its take on the current events came out with the wittiest and brilliant one line caption ‘embracing ya embarrassing?’, complete with the cartoon showing prominently the infamous wink of Rahul. The caption said it all and it is left for the public to summarize to whom the hug proved embarrassing. Some termed it as the ‘most forced hug’ and one twitter user even termed it as a ‘non-consensual hug’.

Of course, Rahul Gandhi had made a political statement through the hug and would have basked in that glory. It was a perfect picture – an image building exercise for Brand Rahul Gandhi as part of the 2019 general elections. (That is what this non confidence motion was all about). Those who had come with this unwritten script never expected or imagined that anything would go wrong exposing their true intentions. But it did. Rahul’s gesture and large-heartedness would have been appreciated but for the wink that went viral. Having enacted the flawless drama after his fiery speech that included a few slip-of-the tongue errors, including sending Prime Minister Modi to the ‘bar’ instead of saying ‘bahar’ means abroad, Rahul was too eager to demonstrate to the fellow Congressmen the true intentions of his hug. Soon after going back to his seat following the hug Lok Sabha TV cameras repeatedly began to show Rahul Gandhi ‘winking’ at fellow Congress MP Jyotiraditya Scindia.

That is when the entire drama began to unfold giving credence to the theory that Rahul Gandhi had resorted to ‘hugplomacy’ as part of the party’s PR exercise. It was also very much evident that he was making a mockery of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and that took away the sheen from his so called ‘spontaneous hug’.

It is true the Congress camp had scripted this drama as part of its PR exercise for Rahul which took even Prime Minister Modi by surprise. The wink of Rahul Gandhi brought crushing down whatever ‘gains’ he and his team Congress would have managed from this hug. The blame lay squarely on Rahul Gandhi himself for this faux pas. May be he had not anticipated the cameras to catch that momentary wink but his was mistaken and the entire game of the Congress gave away bringing embarrassment to the party supremo.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi was baffled by this sudden show of ‘love and compassion’ (to say it in Rahul’s own words) from his principal political opponent. He regained his composure and patted him on the back to reciprocate the bonhomie of Rahul Gandhi. It is still not known what Modi whispered in Rahul’s ears after the hug. The wink of Rahul gives an indication that Modi who was taken up by surprise, must have appreciated his gesture not realizing the true intentions and that is what might have compelled Rahul to make it known to the other behind-the-scene participants of the Congress party in the just then enacted drama by him.

The ‘historic’ gesture of Rahul might continue to be discussed in social and mainstream media and will be in the limelight for some more days, surely, for all the wrong reasons. It cannot be denied that this act has once again dented Rahul Gandhi’s image showing him in poor light as an immature or amateurish politician. If at all the Congress and its supremo Rahul Gandhi is really serious in posing a serious challenge to Narendra Modi in 2019 he has to make concerted efforts to emerge a more seasoned politician and take up the responsibility of leading Congress party’s challenge as a mature politician. The hug and such other short lived theatrics will not serve the purpose especially when he has a political adversary like Narendra Modi.

Let us hope Rahul and his team would come up with better and credible PR exercises to outsmart Narendra Modi in its preparation for the 2019 general elections.