However, he tells ThePrint that for his approach to be converted into political capital, several other things, such as the Congress’s political organisation, have to fall into place.
“You may be seen as a good person, but a good person is not always an automatic choice in an election,” Srinivasaraju asserts.
He says several other factors, including caste and other identity factors, the candidate on the ground, and the larger narrative created during the election, play a significant role in who gets voted in.
“As an individual, he is good, but politics is not about being a good individual. It is about mobilising a community to vote for you…. Politics and elections are far more complicated, and it’s not just about being a good person or making an emotional connection,” Srinivasaraju explains.
Author and political analyst Rashid Kidwai told ThePrint that “political correctness is in short supply in electoral politics”.
“Across the world, in most democracies, we are seeing majoritarianism, and that is why Rahul Gandhi has not been very successful in his political campaign and thinking,” he explains.
He referred to 2022 assembly polls in Uttar Pradesh, when Congress fielded candidates who were sexual violence survivors or their family members. At the time, the party had fielded Asha Singh, the mother of the 2017 Unnao rape victim; ASHA worker Poonam Pandey, who was assaulted during an agitation seeking wage increase; and Lakhimpur Kheri’s Ritu Singh, assaulted as well during the earlier panchayat elections.
“However, most of them forfeited their deposits,” he points out.
According to him, sexual violence agitates people immensely, but it is not a strong enough sentiment to translate into votes.
“At the end of the day, it’s just the victim of sexual violence and her immediate family who gets impacted. The society at large is very indifferent. For them, it’s just a statistic. I would also say the same thing about communal violence,” he explained.
From the Mirchpur and Bhatta Parsaul visits during his early days in politics to the more recent visits to Hathras and Kashmir, ThePrint looks at Gandhi’s visits and subsequent election results.
Yavatmal
Rewind to July 2008.
Gandhi had freshly taken over as the general secretary of the All India Congress Committee, and he was eager to leave a mark.
That was when he visited the hut of Kalavati Bandurkar in Jalka village in the Yavatmal district in Maharashtra. Her husband died by suicide in 2005—an outcome of the agrarian crisis. She was left alone with their seven daughters and two sons.
After Gandhi visited her, Kalavati became the poster woman of the agrarian crisis in Vidarbha. Gandhi mentioned her in the Lok Sabha three days later, recounting her story while advocating for nuclear energy, which, he said, could ensure energy security for women such as her.
Jalka village falls in the Ralegaon assembly constituency, a part of the Yavatmal-Washim Lok Sabha constituency.
Immediately after the visit, the incumbent INC candidate from Ralegaon returned to power in the 2009 Maharashtra assembly elections. However, in the three subsequent assembly polls, in 2014, 2019 and 2024, the BJP candidate emerged victorious.
As for the general elections, the Yavatmal-Washim Lok Sabha constituency voted for the undivided Shiv Sena in the 2009, 2014 and 2019 polls and the Shiv Sena (Uddhav Bal Thackeray) in the 2024 polls.
Meanwhile, Kalavati keeps coming up in the political discourse.
Speaking at a no-confidence motion in the Lok Sabha last year, Union Home Minister Amit Shah took a jibe at Gandhi, referring to his visit to Kalavati in 2008.
“There is a leader in this House—whose political career has been launched 13 times till now. And all 13 attempts have failed. I have seen one of the launches in this House. This leader visited the home of a less fortunate woman, Kalavati, and had a meal at her home. He then spoke about poverty and her hardships in the House. Their government was in power for six years after this. I want to ask what did you do for her. The Modi government gave her a house, electricity, gas, ration, and toilet,” Shah said.
Soon after, the Congress shared a video of Kalavati speaking about all the help she received from Gandhi on social media platform X.
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Niyamgiri
Another of Gandhi’s first such interventions came in 2008 when he stood up for the Dongria Kondh tribals living in and around the Niyamgiri hills in Odisha. The tribals were protesting a proposed bauxite mining plant by the UK-based Vedanta group. By then, the company had invested Rs 5,000 crore to set up an alumina refinery at Lanjigarh in Kalahandi. This refinery was to get the aluminium ore—bauxite—from the Niyamgiri hills, which span the districts of Kalahandi and Rayagada.
After his first visit to Niyamgiri, Kalahandi Lok Sabha constituency voted for the Congress in the 2009 general elections.
The Kalahandi district has five assembly constituencies—Lanjigarh, Junagarh, Dharmgarh, Bhawanipatna and Narla. Lanjigarh, Junagarh, Bhawanipatna and Narla voted for INC in the 2009 assembly elections, while only Dharmagarh voted for Biju Janata Dal.
Rayagada district has the Rayagada, Gunupur and Bissam Cuttack assembly constituencies. Rayagad and Gunupur voted for BJD in the 2009 assembly polls, but Bissam Cuttack voted for INC.
Niyamgiri soon emerged as the epicentre of tribal protests against the proposed bauxite mining project, after which the then-minister of environment and forest Jairam Ramesh, in 2010, rejected the environmental clearance granted to Vedanta. During his second visit to the area in 2010, Gandhi called the move a “victory of tribals”.
“You saved your land and your religion. I did what I could, but this is your victory, not mine. I am your soldier in Delhi. I congratulate you for your struggle. I will always be with you,” he said at the time.
However, the tides turned after this.
The Kalahandi Lok Sabha Constituency voted for the BJD in 2014 but switched to the BJP in the subsequent general elections in 2019 and 2024.
The assembly constituencies of Lanjigarh, Junagarh and Narla voted for the BJD in the subsequent assembly elections in 2014, 2019 and 2024. Dharmagarh voted for BJD in 2014 and 2019, only to switch to the BJP in 2024. Bhawanipatna voted for BJD in 2014, BJP in 2019, and finally, for the Congress in the 2024 assembly elections.
As for Rayagada, the assembly constituency voted for the BJD in 2014, for an Independent in the 2019 assembly elections, and for the Congress in 2024. Both Bissam Cuttack and Gunupur constituencies voted for the BJD in 2014 and 2019, voting for the Congress only in 2024.
Bhatta Parsaul
In 2011, Rahul Gandhi rode a pillion on a motorcycle into the twin adjacent villages of Bhatta and Parsaul in Western UP. He was there to support the villagers protesting land acquisition by the then-government of Mayawati for the Yamuna Expressway construction.
However, in the subsequent 2012 UP elections, the ruling Bahujan Samaj Party candidate Vedram Bhati won the Jewar seat, under which the twin villages fall, while Congress candidate Dhirendra Singh lost by over 9,000 votes. Singh was the one who drove Gandhi on the motorcycle to Bhatta Parsaul in 2011.
In the next two assembly elections, in 2017 and 2022, the Jewar assembly constituency voted for Dhirendra Singh. But, by then, Singh had quit the Congress and joined the Bharatiya Janata Party.
As for the general elections, Jewar is a part of the Gautam Buddh Nagar Lok Sabha constituency, where in the last three general elections, the BJP candidate has emerged victorious.
Yamuna Expressway is now up and running.
Mirchpur
In a surprise visit to Mirchpur village in Haryana in 2010, Rahul Gandhi spent time with Dalit families facing caste-based violence. The violence in the Haryana village saw the burning of Dalit houses by a group of Jats and two people killed.
Haryana then had a Congress government led by Bhupinder Singh Hooda, and Gandhi visiting the village was seen as a message from the Congress high command to the then-CM.
Mirchpur falls in the Narnaund assembly constituency. In the first assembly elections after the visit, the Bharatiya Janata Party candidate Abhimanyu Singh Sindhu won the seat in 2014. In 2019, Jannayak Janta Party candidate Ram Kumar Gautam emerged victorious. Only in 2024 did the INC succeed in making a comeback, with Jassi Petwar winning the assembly election from the Narnaund.
Narnaund is a part of the Hisar Lok Sabha constituency, which saw a similar trend. In 2014, Hisar voted for the Indian National Lok Dal candidate, and in 2019, for the BJP candidate. Only in 2024 did the INC candidate win the seat.
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Gopalgarh
In October 2011, Rahul Gandhi paid another surprise visit to Gopalgarh, Maliki and Piproli villages in Rajasthan—where violent clashes between the Meo Muslim community and Gurjjars had broken out surrounding a land-related dispute.
The three villages fall under the Kaman assembly constituency, which voted in the BJP in the following 2013 assembly elections. In the 2018 polls, the INC candidate won from the constituency, but in the 2023 assembly elections, the BJP candidate emerged victorious again.
The Kaman assembly falls under the Bharatpur Lok Sabha constituency, which voted for the BJP in the two general elections of 2014 and 2019 following the incident. In the 2024 general elections, the Congress made a comeback, with its candidate Sanjana Jatav winning.
Satara
In April 2012, Rahul Gandhi visited the drought-hit regions in Mumbai’s Satara district, assuring farmers of solutions to their problems.
In the subsequent 2014 assembly polls, the Satara Vidhan Sabha constituency voted the Nationalist Congress Party to power after the NCP broke its 15-year-old alliance with the Congress before that assembly election. In 2019 and 2024, it voted BJP to power. In all three assembly elections, the winner was Shivendrasinh Abhayasinh Bhosale, who joined the BJP before the 2019 elections. According to reports from the time, Gandhi had also visited other villages in the Satara district, including Dahiwadi, Pangri and Jhashi, which fall under the Man Assembly constituency. This segment saw a more positive result, with the constituency voting for the incumbent INC candidate Jaykumar Gore in 2014. However, Gore joined the BJP in 2019, and has since been voted in as the BJP candidate in the 2019 and 2024 assembly elections.
The Satara Lok Sabha constituency voted for the NCP in 2014 and 2019 and the BJP in the 2024 general elections. Meanwhile, Madha Lok Sabha Constituency, under which Man Assembly segment falls, voted for the NCP in the subsequent 2014 general elections, the BJP in 2019, and the NCP (Sharatchandra Pawar) in 2024.
Shakur Basti
In 2015, when a six-month-old child died in an anti-encroachment drive by the Railways in Delhi’s Shakur Basti, it gave anti-BJP ammunition to both the Congress and the Aam Aadmi Party. Rahul Gandhi visited the demolition site at the time.
“I would not let demolition happen anywhere in the city. Whenever any such thing happens, call Rahul Gandhi. Congress is not in power both in Centre and Delhi, yet I am with you all in this battle,” he was quoted as saying.
However, in the subsequent assembly elections in 2020, Shakur Basti voted for incumbent Satyender Jain from the AAP. Shakur Basti is a part of the Chandni Chowk Lok Sabha constituency, which voted for the BJP in 2019 and 2024.
Una violence
In 2016, Rahul Gandhi visited Gujarat’s Una town and met the family members of the seven Dalit youths thrashed for allegedly killing a cow. The video of the thrashing had gone viral, sparking protests and leading to the death by suicide of a Dalit protester and the death of a policeman in mob violence.
Immediately after the violence, Congress’s Punjabhai Bhimabhai Vansh won the Una Vidhan Sabha seat in 2017, but the Congress did not see the same results in the next polls. BJP’s Kalubhai Rathod won the 2022 assembly elections from Una.
Una is a part of the Junagadh Lok Sabha constituency, which has voted for the Bharatiya Janata Party since 2009.
Saharanpur
A year after the Una visit, Rahul Gandhi found himself meeting Dalit victims of caste violence in Shabbirpur village, Saharanpur, Uttar Pradesh, in 2017. He met the families despite the local administration and the UP police denying him permission to visit. He also had UP Congress chief Raj Babbar and senior party leader Ghulam Nabi Azad with him.
Shabbirpur falls under the Deoband assembly segment, a part of the Saharanpur Lok Sabha constituency.
Gandhi’s visit came in May 2017, after the UP assembly elections when Deoband had already voted in the BJD candidate. It repeated its choice in the 2022 assembly elections as well.
In the 2019 general elections, the Bahujan Samaj Party candidate emerged victorious in the Saharanpur Lok Sabha constituency. However, the 2024 elections saw a different result, with the Congress candidate winning the seat.
Mandsaur
In 2017, Madhya Pradesh’s Mandsaur district witnessed high-voltage drama, with Rahul Gandhi arrested for attempting to jump a barrier to enter the town.
Gandhi wanted to visit Mandsaur on the heels of farmer protests that escalated to the death of five in police firing in Pipliamandi. He was able to meet the families of the victims but at the Madhya Pradesh-Rajasthan border only.
Gandhi visited Mandsaur a year later, in 2018, ahead of the MP assembly elections, to observe the first anniversary of the incident.
Pipliamandi something wrong happens, we will be there—to ensure justice is served. No one can stop us,” Priyanka Gandhi further said in the Suwasra assembly constituency, which falls in the Mandsaur Lok Sabha segment. The Suwasra assembly segment voted for the Congress in 2018, but its candidate, Hardeep Singh Dang, resigned from the assembly membership and subsequently from the Congress in 2020. He was one of the several Congress legislators whose resignations had triggered a political crisis in Madhya Pradesh in 2020, leading to the fall of the then Kamal Nath government. Dang’s resignation letter said he was hurt because he was “repeatedly ignored” by Nath and other ministers, signing off by saying that his struggle for farmers’ issues would continue, according to a news18 report from the time.
Dang was the only Congress MLA elected from the Mandsaur district, while the three other assembly segments went to the BJP in 2018. He then joined the BJP in 2020. In the subsequent bypolls in 2020 and assembly elections in 2023, Dang has been winning the constituency as a BJP candidate.
Meanwhile, the Mandsaur Lok Sabha constituency has voted for the BJP in the last three general elections of 2014, 2019 and 2024.
Hathras
Back in 2020, the police detained Rahul Gandhi and Priyanka Gandhi on the highway between Delhi and Uttar Pradesh on their way to Hathras after the alleged gang rape and death of a 19-year-old Dalit woman.
In October 2020, Rahul Gandhi and Priyanka Gandhi spent almost an hour with the bereaved family. Speaking to the media after meeting the family, Rahul Gandhi promised to maintain pressure on the government to ensure that the family gets justice.
“Wherever something wrong happens, we will be there—to ensure justice is served. No one can stop us,” Priyanka Gandhi further said.
The incident happened in Bool Garhi village in Hathras district. It falls under the Sikandra Rao Assembly constituency, where the 2022 assembly election results saw BJP’s Birendra Singh Rana winning with 97,905 votes, against a meagre 1,155 votes for the Congress candidate. In the general election earlier this year, the Hathras Lok Sabha constituency saw a similar result—BJP’s Anoop Pradhan Balmiki emerged victorious with 5,54,746 votes against Samajwadi Party’s Jasveer Valmiki. SP and Congress put up a united fight in UP in the general elections this year, and Congress did not field a candidate in Hathras.
In March last year, an SC/ST court in Hathras acquitted three out of four accused persons in the Hathras case while convicting one person for culpable homicide, not amounting to murder.
Kashmir
In August 2021, Rahul Gandhi undertook a two-day visit to Jammu and Kashmir—his first visit to the Union Territory after the abrogation of Article 370. When, in 2019, he tried to visit Kashmir with an opposition delegation after the abrogation of Article 370, he was turned away from Srinagar airport.
Then, this year, ahead of the assembly polls, he visited Srinagar in August. He emphasised that this was the first time in India’s history that a state now stands reduced to a Union Territory.
“We want to give this message that the representation of the people of Jammu and Kashmir is important, it is important for us, and it is important for the country,” he was quoted as saying by the media.
However, in the first assembly elections in Jammu and Kashmir, after the erstwhile state became a UT, the Congress made a poor showing once again. While the J&K National Conference won 42 seats, the INC won 6. The BJP won 29 seats.
(Edited by Madhurita Goswami)
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