Story of Ruchi Gupta and Congress

The ending of Ruchi Guptarsquos Congress story is known She quit as the national incharge of the National Studentsrsquo Union of India a frontal Congress outfit in December 2020 She was tired of waiting for the NSUIrsquos state units to be reconstituted media claimed She did not badmouth the Gandhis she did not join another party Yet Ruchirsquos story is special because it shows how the stasis in the Congress can turn idealism into cudmdashand then spit it out It is where the effervescence of enthusiasm dissipatesLet us begin the story from the beginningYou could begin the story when Ruchi as a little girl saw her father shoo away a beggar who had come knocking on their door at night ldquoHe must have been hungry Papardquo the little girl said Many minutes later she and her Papa went to look for the beggar They could not find himOr you could begin the story when Ruchi worked in Burger King to finance her studies in the United States In 2006 the global consultancy giant McKinsey hired her in New York No longer required to struggle to keep her body and soul together she joined the Teach India incubation project for a few months It turned into a tryst with the India she never knew the India where aspirations invariablyrun agroundIt was to comprehend this India she took to working with Arvind Kejriwal years before he spearheaded the anticorruption movement Her next stop was the Mazdoor Kisan Shakti Sangathan which Aruna Roy and Nikhil Dey run in Rajasthan She hopped from one village to another before wisdom dawned on Ruchimdashidealism alone cannot make Indiarsquos future glowIdealism must be combined with political interventions to bring about an enduring change And because Roy was a member of the National Advisory Council which advised then Congress president Sonia Gandhi Ruchi became acquainted with its secretary Koppula Raju the 1981batch IAS officer who took voluntary retirement in 2013 On being made the head of the Congress Scheduled Caste cell Raju appointed Ruchi as the convenor of its Rajasthan chapterIt seemed ridiculous to have Ruchi a bania head the SC cell But when Rajasthanrsquos Vasundhara Raje government promulgated an ordinance in December 2014 introducing minimum educational qualifications for candidates to contest in panchayat elections Ruchi pored over the 2011 Census The figures were shocking 54 per cent of SCs 62 per cent of Scheduled Tribes and 44 per cent of Rajasthanrsquos entire population would be knocked out of panchayati electionsThis is disenfranchisement she said in a presentation before a meeting of top leaders Rahul Gandhi included Convinced the Congress moved in 2016 an amendment to the motion of thanks to the Presidentrsquos address to Parliament on this count The Rajya Sabha adopted the amendment just the fifth such instance since IndependenceRuchi was made the NSUI incharge in 2017 That very year the party won the Delhi University Student Union elections after four years Congress leaders trumpeted the defeat of the politics of hate in the Bharatiya Janata Partyrsquos veritable denA jubilant Ruchi texted to Rahul declaring that she loved her jobAn aspect of her role was to gather feedback from Indiarsquos young for the party She said their complaint was that nobody listened to them In 2018 the Congress ran a campaign in Karnataka ldquoWe are listeningrdquoShe said the people particularly the youth hankered for a political identity BJP members view themselves as striving to turn India into a Hindu rashtra In contrast the Congress comes across as simply a party hostile to Narendra Modi ldquoThe Congress cannot be defined in relation to himrdquo Ruchi said ldquoWe need our own narrativerdquoShe aired her views in meetings comprising senior leaders She was outspoken She dissed the Congressrsquos Bharat Bachao campaign as full of negativity Ruchi was thought of as an upstart who spoke out of turn even though Rahul did not seem to mindOnly those who run can tripSo they waited for her to falter A complaint against the NSUI president became a way to take her down The president resigned Yet they sat on her recommendations for new appointments for over one year Constantly bogged down in petty internal feuds instead of focussing on the external Ruchi resigned The Congress more than a year later has still to find her replacementYou wonder How do I know her story so well I spoke to Ruchi obviously after coaxing her for a year to speak to me But she is a hard nut to crack Juicy tales have been left out from this piece because she would stonewall ldquoI will say nothingrdquoOr ldquoI do not bitch about my former colleaguesrdquoIt is obvious her wounds are still raw Does she hurt No Is she bitter No Does she regret the years in the Congress No no no ldquoI just feel sadrdquo she said still seriously engaged with politics and trying to carve out a path where integrity and passion for building Indiarsquos future can be combined evident from her media pieces A pity the Congress has no place for people like RuchiThe writer is a senior journalistSend your feedback to mailbagmiddaycomThe views expressed in this column are the individualrsquos and donrsquot represent those of the paper