Newly-elected Congress president Rahul Gandhi greets his mother and predecessor Sonia Gandhi after her speech at the party headquarters in New Delhi. (Photo: Pritam Bandyopadhyay)

The speech of a new Congress president — possibly more than that of any other political formation in the country, including the current ruling party — has to be many things, but above all it has to speak of a larger purpose. This is because, unlike other parties, it is the Congress that has historically woven into its tapestry every diversity of the country and sought to propel the admixture in the direction of modernity and national advance.

Rahul Gandhi’s maiden address on Saturday, as he assumed charge as Congress president, had as its distinguishing feature a political combativeness in relation to Prime Minister Narendra Modi as well as the central ideology of the BJP. This was doubtless needed. But more was also needed. Mr Gandhi, however, gave the impression that he was coming off the campaign trail in Gujarat and had not entirely left campaigning behind.

(Ironically, Mr Modi too was emphasising his campaign style in the Northeast, criticising the Congress and the UPA in season and out of season as is his wont, and speaking airily of his recent seaplane ride on the last day of campaigning in Ahmedabad, linking this to the nation’s infrastructure development!)

The Congress is sitting in the Opposition, and has never been as disadvantageously placed as now in all the years since Independence. In Mr Modi, Mr Gandhi also faces the most difficult adversary imaginable. This was precisely the time for the Congress president to appeal to the country as a whole on the range of issues that deeply concern the people — away from the slogans that pass for policy under the current ruling establishment.

Mr Gandhi missed that opportunity when he formally took charge on the lawns of the AICC headquarters. He needed to undertake a sweep of the nuances of today’s reality, and not confine himself to making a distinction between the Congress and the BJP. His speech needed the stamp of a state of the nation address that takes in the economy, social life, international relations and the future of the country as he sees it.

A Congress president’s speech when the party is in power is, in a sense, much easier to craft as the direction of the party’s work and thinking dovetails into government policy, and offers the government a blueprint of policy with the stamp of political approval. But when in Opposition, the party president is truly tested. He or she must unite the party factions, deepen the party organisationally, seek to extend it even in areas where it has been rebuffed, and must offer a magisterial sweep of the lie of the land so that the country can gain a sense of confidence in the party and in its president’s ability to take it forward.