Love him or hate him but you cannot ignore the new Congress president Rahul Gandhi after he has taken over the reins of the party on December 16.  After all he leads the main opposition party in the country and all will watch his moves and his strategies.

How will he go forward to meet challenges?  Does he have a plan to revive the party, to come up with programmes and a credible poll strategy? We do not know. Despite entering politics in 2004, Rahul still has a lot to learn. There is a difference between him and his mother Sonia Gandhi, when she took over the reins of the party in 1998. She came to the forefront when the party was facing erosion. She became the first woman Leader of the Opposition and steered the party to power not once but twice – in 2004 and 2009. She managed to build a non-BJP coalition and held it together. She was the party chief for a record 19 years. But she was also responsible for not building up the organisation in terms of second-rung and state-level leaders.

Sonia adopted a status-quoist attitude and remained a consensus seeker with the result that in the past few years Congress-ruled states have come down to six from 14 and the party’s tally in the 2014 Lok Sabha had tumbled to just 44, its lowest ever. The Congress has been losing state after state after Narendra Modi entered the national scene. After Rahul became the vice president of the party in 2013, the mother-son duo presented no new narrative to attract voters.

Rahul Gandhi is taking over the reins at a time when the Modi-led NDA is going from strength to strength and today rules in 19 states. The Prime Minister’s popularity continues to grow and the Congress has not been able to cash in on the government’s misadventures and some unpopular policies like GST and demonetisation.  While Rahul gave a good account of himself during the recent Gujarat poll campaign, he has to show that he can translate crowds into votes. We have to wait and see whether he can do it in the next one year, as elections are due in eight states and soon after that we come to the 2019 Lok Sabah polls. If Modi’s winning spree continues, the Congress will be in even deeper trouble.

For countering Modi, Rahul has to ensure that the opposition remains together. But will senior opposition leaders like Sharad Pawar, Mamata Banerjee, Lalu Prasad Yadav and other stalwarts work under him? They had shown no hesitation to accept Sonia Gandhi’s leadership. The CPI-M general secretary Sitaram Yechury has already said in a TV interview that Sonia was the glue that kept the UPA together and without her the UPA will split. That is why the old guard in the Congress want Sonia to continue as the UPA chairman. There is also need to get more allies on board and they will come only when they see Rahul getting votes. Internally, the new Congress President has huge challenges in getting the party ready to face next year’s Assembly and 2019 Lok Sabha polls. His innovative measures to reform the party had not succeeded earlier and it is not clear how he plans to revive an organisation that needs thorough overhaul and manpower management.

Rahul also needs a mix of advisers – old guard as well as young leaders. He has shown his flexibility by getting former Rajasthan chief minister Ashok Ghelot as the campaign in-charge in just concluded Gujarat Assembly polls, which worked well.  He might keep some other senior leaders like P Chidambaram and Anand Sharma while giving responsibility to his own team of younger leaders including Sachin Pilot, Jyotiraditya Scindia, Milind Deora, Dipen Hooda and Jitin Prasada. In the states, he might appoint new Pradesh Congress Presidents of his choice. He has the unenviable task of finding suitable people for the party’s highest body, the Congress Working Committee and other office bearers.

Above all, mere Modi-bashing without an alternate programme will not have any impact. Rahul has been talking about job losses, inflation, demonetisation and GST, which affect the common man. What is his new narrative? His grandmother Indira Gandhi found the 20-point programme for poll success and Sonia stuck to the “common man” theme in 2004. What is his alternate programme? Unless he reveals a viable strategy, the voters will not be attracted. The dynasty card will not work anymore.

During the recent Gujarat campaign, Rahul had emerged as a credible leader with even the BJP taking him seriously. He conducted the poll campaign well and his new image clicked with the public. Will he take it forward?  If the Congress improves in Gujarat and does not lose badly in Himachal Pradesh, it could be a base from which he can build his future poll plans. After all, the proof of the pudding is in the eating and his success depends upon how many polls he wins before 2019. Rahul had begun well in Gujarat and there are chances that he might succeed if he makes the right choices and proves himself as an alternate to Modi.