The Coroner Who Forgot to Check the Pulse
@rahulpandita
1] You called BJP a "leviathan" - its money, machine, and media unbeatable. Then blamed one man for losing to it. Pick one. A leviathan won, or Rahul Gandhi lost. It can't be both.
#RahulGandhi #Congress
2] "Cannot have a conversation with India."
Tell that to Karnataka 2023. And Telangana 2023. Two states, two clear wins over the BJP - both after the Yatra you mocked. The thesis died on contact with the scoreboard.
#BharatJodoYatra
3] "No map, only anecdotes." Caste census. 50% cap scrapped. Legal MSP. Cash to women. That's a platform. You didn't refute it - you renamed it a vibe and walked off.
#CasteCensus
4] 2024: BJP lost its majority. Congress nearly doubled. The first dent in Modi in a decade. Your column needs that election to not exist. It does.
#LokSabha2024
5] "No sample flat" - because a metaphor can't be fact-checked and a budget can. Telangana and Karnataka are real governments. You reached for a builder analogy to avoid the balance sheet.
#Karnataka #Telangana
6] You wanted him to run a race you admit "he may well have lost" - just so you'd have a fresh defeat to write up. That's not a standard. It's a trap with a byline.
#INC
7] Owned by a corporate house, scornful of redistribution, cosy with the status quo. The slant isn't an accident. It's the masthead.
#MediaBias
8] Yes - Congress has shrunk. Real, undeniable. But "terminally ill"? A party winning states and denting Modi against total resource asymmetry isn't on a ventilator. It's an opposition fighting uphill. You wrote a postmortem on a body that's still walking. 🎯
#IndianPolitics
9] History wants to be kind to your column too. It just doesn't know how.
#RunningNeverArriving
In this week’s Open Magazine. Out today.