Rahul Gandhi likes to keep it simple. Walking briskly, with a hand in his trouser pocket, the 53-year-old Congress leader answered the “why white T-shirt” (now his trademark style) question during a campaign trail in Karnataka.
“Transparency and simplicity. And I don’t really care much about clothes. I just prefer it simple,” said the Congress leader as he got into a chopper.
Mr Gandhi, a former party chief, played interviewer to Congress chief M Kharge and Karnataka Chief Minister Siddaramaiah. This was part of a “light rapid fire” and a video chat between the three leaders.
Asked by Mr Gandhi about what seems good and what’s bad during the campaign, Mr Kharge said: “There’s nothing bad. It’s good because we are doing all this for the country. The one who’s spoiling the country, when we work to stop him, we feel good. At least, we are doing something good for the country.”
Turning to Siddaramaiah in the car, he continued the “light rapid fire”, asking the Congress veteran what will he choose, power or ideology.
“Ideology,” said the veteran, explaining, “It’s because ideology is always important. You have to place before the people the ideology of the party and the programmes of the party. And if you are in power, you have to tell people our achievements. Then only the people will definitely appreciate our stand and they will bless us.”
At this point, the Congress chief, sitting in the front, joins the issue.
“Power comes and goes. But staying true to ideology is a bigger thing. Ourt leaders have sacrificed for this,” said Mr Kharge.
“I agree with both Kharge ji and Siddaramaiah ji. In my view, you cannot go as a large organisation, you cannot go towards power without a clear understanding of the ideology. And we have to convince the people of our ideology which is pro-poor, pro-women, plural, treating everybody equally. So the political fight at an organisational level, at a national level is always about ideology,” Mr Gandhi concurred.
Mr Gandhi, who made his poll debut in 2004, was asked what’s the best part about campaigning.
“When it ends,” pat came the reply.
“See, for me, this campaign has been going on for now almost 70 days. Bharat Jodo Yatra was not a campaign but in terms of working it was harder than this. Non-stop. So I have been going for quite a long time. You know this is the strange thing. I quite like the speeches. It makes one think about what the country needs,” he said explaining further.
Karnataka has 28 Lok Sabha seats and elections in the state are being held in two phases. Voting for 14 seats concluded on April 26 and the remaining 14 seats will undergo polling on May 7. The counting of votes is scheduled for June 4.
In 2019, the BJP almost swept the state by winning 25 out of 28 seats, while Congress and JD-S – who were alliance partners in the state – could only win one seat each.
This time, the BJP and JD-S are in coalition with the former fighting on 25 seats, while the latter is contesting three seats.
