Relaunching Rahul Gandhi, again

Walk through the Indian countryside alongside Rahul Gandhi for a while and it is possible to imagine you are witnessing the rebirth of a political movement. Traversing the northern state of Himachal Pradesh one wintry day last week the leader of Congress, India’s main opposition party, was heralded in every town and village. Scores of people jostled for space behind windows and on rooftops, brandishing phones and occasionally tablets to record a glimpse of him. Sporting a white T-shirt and bushy beard, Mr Gandhi trudged inside a rectangular security cordon formed by police wearing tracksuits and carrying a yellow rope. Every few minutes the caravan stopped and security guards hustled bystanders inside the cordon for a photo-op and brief chat.

The “Bharat Jodo Yatra” (roughly “unite India march”) is an effort to boost Congress and its leader ahead of the general election due next year. Both badly need it. Congress, which as recently as 2009 won twice as many seats as its Hindu nationalist opponent, the Bharatiya Janata Party (bjp), risks becoming an electoral irrelevance. It controls just three of India’s 28 states and less than 10% of seats in the lower house of parliament. The bjp has 16 states, 56% of lower house seats—and in Narendra Modi, the prime minister, by far India’s most popular leader. He is the preferred prime minister of over 60% of Indians; half as many would pick Mr Gandhi.