Explained : Opinion | India’s Own Donald Trump? Inside Rahul Gandhi’s Politics Of Provocation | Opinion News and Its Impact

Last Updated:March 04, 2026, 12:15 IST

Gandhi’s deliberate combativeness, default hostility and impulsive outbursts are decidedly Trumpian. So is his epic disregard for facts

Rahul Gandhi would do better to take his cue from the gravitas of party colleagues like Shashi Tharoor, Priyanka Gandhi Vadra and Manish Tewari.

Rahul Gandhi’s histrionics increasingly parallel those of US President Donald Trump. Like POTUS, he has a habit of lobbing verbal bottle bombs in the hope that they will flare up into a headline-grabbing issue.

The more bizarre the allegations and the more egregious the language, the better the chances of garnering public attention. If you lack talking points, make yourself the talking point. Better Trump than dumped.

Gandhi’s deliberate combativeness, default hostility and impulsive outbursts are decidedly Trumpian. So is his epic disregard for facts. Thus, he echoed Trump’s claim that India’s was a “dead economy”. Never mind a robust growth rate, POTUS had only “stated facts”.

When India denied that Trump had brokered a ceasefire following Operation Sindoor, Gandhi said the action against terror camps in Pakistan had ceased on POTUS’ direction. Never mind that Trump isn’t regarded as a model of veracity. Never mind that Congressmen appreciated the government’s handling of the crisis.

Gandhi claims that Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit to Israel in 2017 was orchestrated by sex offender Jeffery Epstein. Never mind that Epstein’s entire career was grounded in fraud, the Indian public should take his word for it.

With each electoral setback, Gandhi’s gyrations grow ever more frantic. Time was, when he had only to appear before the media to make news. Now, his presence on the air and the front page is invariably linked to conspiracy theories and provocative posts.

Gaslighting voters through the Goebbelsian technique of “Tell a lie often enough, and it becomes the truth” is endemic in politics. But it doesn’t work if your opponent enjoys more public credibility than you. Undermining Brand Modi is therefore a Congress imperative.

The Trump-inspired ‘vote chori’ campaign was intended to do just that. In 2024, POTUS had laid a “they cheat like dogs” charge against the Democrats, and Gandhi took up the electoral fraud theme some months later. Like ‘chowkidar chor hai’, his “hydrogen bomb” fizzled out, failing to meet the burden of proof.

Gandhi took a leaf from Trump’s ‘reality TV’ style with theatrical moments in Parliament such as an attempted reading of General (retd) MM Naravane’s draft memoir, blowing a flying kiss towards the treasury benches and taunting Union Minister Ravneet Singh Bittu as a “traitor”.

Following their leader, Youth Congress members did a strip-tease at the AI Summit, and were inaptly described as “babbar sher” by Gandhi. Small wonder comparisons between Trump and Gandhi feature on social media.

The trouble is that the Congress lacks organisational strength and is devoid of big ideas. It has failed to find a chink in the NDA’s armour, thanks partly to the government’s pro-active approach to development and welfare, and partly to its own inability to pick the right issues.

None of the issues that the party has taken up, be it unemployment, corruption, the Old Pension Scheme, the Caste Census, the democratic deficit or electoral fraud, have yielded electoral gains. The assault on the government in the wake of the Balakot air strike and Operation Sindoor were counterproductive, and the party paid the price.

Insinuations like PM Modi dancing to Trump’s tune in Israel, or Sikhs faced an existential crisis in BJP-ruled India, fall on infertile soil. Indian voters expect their Leader of the Opposition to do the homework, and lay evidence-based charges against the government. They do not fall prey to simplistic slogans.

Trumpian demagoguery marked by anti-establishment rhetoric, fear-mongering and reliance on loyalists rather than speakers of truth to power, just won’t cut it. Gandhi would do better to take his cue from the gravitas of party colleagues like Shashi Tharoor, Priyanka Gandhi Vadra and Manish Tewari. No matter how strongly they feel about an issue, like Priyanka Gandhi on Palestine, they are never over-the-top.

Bhavdeep Kang is a freelance writer and author of ‘Gurus: Stories of India’s Leading Babas’ and ‘Just Transferred: The Untold Story of Ashok Khemka’. A journalist since 1986, she has written extensively on national politics. Views expressed in the above piece are personal and solely that of the author. They do not necessarily reflect News18’s views.

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