Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi is being relaunched as a firebrand young leader to be projected as an alternate to Prime Minister Narendra Modi. This had been attempted earlier also but the marketing was a failure. But this time it seems to be clicking. Gandhi’s new image building has been planned to coincide with his taking over the party later this month.

In fact his two-week US tour last month was part of this rebranding, to expose him abroad before re- launching him in India. The US tour was important not just because it showed a new side of Rahul but also revealed the new political strategy of the Congress.

Oddly, the exposure seems to have worked for him where he stayed with the message, talking about jobs, engaged with questions and was frank with students of the University of Berkeley and Princeton. He spoke freely about Modi’s divisive politics, and the slowing down of the economy due to wrong policies like demonetisation.

Fortunately for him, it clicked with the result the Gandhi scion got more space in newspapers. After his return his poll campaign in Gujarat and elsewhere is picking up. Although it is due to various reasons including growing disenchantment with the Modi government as well as voter fatigue with the BJP, which has been ruling the state since 1995, Congressmen give credit to Rahul. Perhaps Modi is going through a rough patch with the economy slowing down and is receiving brickbats for demonetisation and sloppy implementation of GST.

Even some of the diehard supporters of the Prime Minister are a little disenchanted and the pro-Modi chorus in social media is a little muted. On the contrary, Gandhi’s efforts to increase his presence in social media is claimed to be a great success in the past three months. He is using Twitter effectively, an area which he had earlier almost ignored. Gandhi, who has 3.78 million Twitter followers, falls way behind the Prime Minister with 35.5 million followers. However, this is changing in the past three months. His tweets suggest that the Congress scion is wooing the middle class – an area he had almost completely ignored before.

According to India Today, @OfficeOfRG got 2,784 retweets in September on average, as compared to 2,506 for Modi and 1,722 for Arvind Kejriwal. So far in October, they say he’s scoring even better, at 3,812. While Rahul was not taken seriously all these years, the mood seems to be changing now. In a bid to get Hindu votes, Rahul has begun reading the Bhagwad Gita and Upanishads. He has started visiting temples to woo Hindu voters as the party was being criticized for having too much of a tilt in favour of Muslims. Since his return from the US, Gandhi’s statements attacking the BJP and its chief Amit Shah on the controversial issue of his son’s business ventures has drawn BJP leaders into the ring. A news report claimed Jay Shah’s firm saw a 16,000-time rise in turnover since the BJP came to power at the Centre in 2014. This allegation may or may not be true but the damage has been done.

Taking advantage of this, Gandhi attacks the BJP on the issue of corruption, that too in Modi’s home state Gujarat. Not only does he seem to raise the right issues, but he also seems to be framing his arguments better.There are indications that the BJP recognises his arrival. Even the Prime Minister has frontally taken him on.

The BJP has fielded its top ministers like Smriti Zubin Irani, Nirmala Seetharaman, Piyush Goyal and Ravi Shankar Prasad to defend Shah and also attack the Gandhi family by raising the issue of Bofors and the business dealings of Priyanka Gandhi’s husband, Robert Vadra. More controversies about the Gandhi family’s alleged corrupt deals are being dug out. Gandhi has also raised several questions with regard to recent reports of China getting engaged in construction activity in the Doklam area and whether China was back to constructing a road in the Dokalam area at a meeting of Parliamentary Standing Committee on External Affairs last week.

The question is will the Congress be able to sustain this momentum at least until the upcoming Assembly polls to Gujarat and Himachal Pradesh? It is doubtful but if it has to happen, Rahul needs a change of narrative and must project the Congress as the alternative. Enthused by the recent Gurdaspur bye-election success in Punjab, the Congress feels that this is the time for the party to capture the minds of people. The second challenge is to connect with voters. The third is his ability to carry forward the momentum and create a good image for the party. The fourth is to boost the morale of workers. The fifth is to encash the opportunity to votes in favour of the Congress. The sixth is to build viable alliances across the country. Finally, the successful marketing of Gandhi and the Congress Party is important.

Jyoditraditya Scindia had admitted recently “in the end, what will make the difference is the ability to mobilise voters.” For ultimately, it is the voters who will decide if a rebranded Rahul Gandhi is acceptable to them.