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Rahul Gandhi is on a media and public interaction overdrive these days. After skirting the media for close to 10 years (two terms of the UPA), the Congress scion and now party vice-president, has, at the fag end of this government’s tenure started engaging with the media and with the public. On Monday, Gandhi aggressively courted “current issues”; the death of Arunachali student Nido Tania - victim of a hate crime and the problems faced by street vendors.
Gandhi first met a delegation of students from the North East led by Arunachal Member of Parliament Ninong Ering, to discuss the students’ concerns about their safety in the capital and how they were being increasingly targeted. He next met Home Minister Sushil Kumar Shinde and urged him to take up the issue. The Aam Aadmi Party-led Delhi government has been derided for playing down the incident and merely ordering a magisterial inquiry. Later in the evening, he met a delegation of street vendors at his Tughlaq Road residence, assuring them that the Street Vendors Bill would be pushed through in Parliament, so that among other things, they would not be harassed by law enforcers when conducting their businesses.
Gandhi then sprung a surprise upon the waiting media contingent at his residence when he decided to join the protests by students from the North East at Jantar Mantar. Sitting on the dias with the students, mike in hand he said, "What has happened is totally unacceptable. I see the picture of Nido and for me, he is primarily an Indian. We are going to ensure that you get respect in this country, full stop. He must get justice." He went on assure, "You can expect a very strict action. A detailed study done by a committee on the issues of North-easterners of this country is also being done. We are trying to move forward on that."
Gandhi's 'coming out', although a sign of change from his earlier reserved image of someone who appeared to take up issues occasionally, appears to be a tad too late in the day. The 2014 polls are just around the corner.
Last week, Gandhi gave his first television interview to a leading English news channel, prior to which he had spoken to a Hindi news daily.
