Hundreds crowd the road as far as the eye can see, waving flags and holding placards. Then a cheer erupts. Wearing a blue polo shirt and trousers, Congress leader Rahul Gandhi emerges from the sun roof of a car that’s parked in the middle of the road. He sits on the roof of the car, with Lok Sabha MP Jothimani by his side, and addresses the people of Erode, many of whom haven’t seen the Congress leader up close and personal before.
The scene is similar in Coimbatore, where a massive crowd encircled his car. Once he emerged out of the sunroof, he was greeted with cheers and slogans. “I have ‘ties of family and ties of blood’ with people of Tamil Nadu,” the Congress leader said, even as he invoked Tamil pride and culture in his speeches across the western regions of the state.
This was Rahul Gandhi’s second visit to Tamil Nadu in less than a month — not entirely surprising as the state goes to polls soon. The first visit was to Madurai during Pongal, for a Jallikattu match. This time, it was a three-day roadshow in Erode, Coimbatore, Tirupur and Karur beginning January 23. A third visit is planned on February 27 to March 1, where he will be covering five districts including Thoothukudi, Virudhunagar Virudhunagar, Tirunelveli, Thenkasi and Kanyakumari districts to interact with the people. The Tamil Nadu Congress Committee president KS Alagiri said, the state unit has planned for five total visits at various parts of the state including capital Chennai ahead of the elections.
This election season, Rahul Gandhi is working harder to have a personal connect with the people of Tamil Nadu, say those working in his team.
In a state dominated by Dravidian ideology, Rahul Gandhi until now was seen as a leader distant from the people — his rallies were held on a stage, with little public interaction, if any. This time though, Rahul Gandhi’s team took a conscious decision to skip the stage, for a casual and engaging roadshow.
“We believe he is quite liked in Tamil Nadu, he used to get a good response. Earlier the meetings were all large public meetings where he flew into a place in a helicopter. But this time the event organisers thought he should do a road show and meet people. We wanted many non-political meetings, which is why met weavers, MSMEs and had lunch with the YouTube channel,” says someone from his team in Delhi.
“The decision to replace stage rallies by roadshows was taken by Tamil Nadu Congress Committee. Stage shows have become outdated now,” says Jothimani, a Member of Parliament from Karur, who accompanied Rahul Gandhi on his tour.
“Also, in stage shows, we miss the opportunity of traveling to smaller villagers. This time, he was able to cover Kangeyam and Dharapuram,” she added. “Rahul Gandhi is someone who likes to connect with the people and he also wants to stand for the people of Tamil Nadu since BJP is continuously attacking the culture of Tamil people.”
Tamil Nadu has normally seen Rahul Gandhi on a huge stage with full protection, where he gives his speech for a maximum of one hour or two, after which he leaves in his vehicle. The National Security Guard (NSG) also provides protection at each juncture along with the state police.
An extension of the sunroof-strategy was Rahul’s meeting with the Village Cooking Channel, and his interaction with the YouTubers. Rahul Gandhi made a raita, while the YouTube team made a mushroom biryani. The original video has reached over one crore views at the time of writing.
Jothimani, who first shared the story of the team with Rahul Gandhi said, “I came across the village cooking show and their story was inspiring. They came from a small village and fought in the internet world with their strengths. They continue to work in the fields despite running the YouTube channel. So, I conveyed this to him (Rahul) and he had already watched the channel since he cooks. So, he quickly agreed to visit them.”
Rahul Gandhi’s team has also focused on making his speeches in Tamil Nadu appeal to Tamil pride — and strongly hit out at BJP and RSS. On Pongal day, Rahul in Madurai said, "It is my duty to stand with the Tamil people and protect their culture."
“Knickerwallas from Nagpur (referring to RSS) can never even decide the future of Tamil Nadu,” he said in one rally.
Rahul's team believes that the success of his program had two effects — the first is that it has rejuvenated the Congress in Tamil Nadu to an extent and unified their efforts. "We had planned only two big events in Tamil Nadu, but now every region is demanding a program. This is why he will come back to visit the south region soon,” said a source in Rahul Gandhi’s team adding, “One of the things is that our ally the DMK also sees us as a partner that can attract voters and the respect between allies is growing."
Currently, Congress is forced to put in huge efforts to establish themselves as an able political ally of DMK since there is a view that Congress may be weak for DMK, or they may bring down the vote share of DMK in the upcoming elections. In 2016 too, Congress was allotted 41 seats but they managed to win only eight seats. So, at a time when DMK is also viewing to bag all the anti-incumbency votes, DMK is mulling allocating fewer seats to the Congress.