In the party itself, all that senior functionaries like Digvijay Singh can do is to wage a propaganda war on Twitter. But, since the effect of these battles in cyber space is unclear, the prospects of a party have still to be judged in the old-fashioned way of counting heads at public meetings.
To be fair to Rahul, it has to be said that he is giving his best. For the first time in his still brief political life - which has been marked by absenteeism from parliament - he has been on the road for a considerable period of time, even claiming to have suffered a tummy upset by drinking unfiltered water.
It goes without saying that he not only remains the party's best bet, but the only one. His problem, however, is that the Manmohan Singh government's failures over the last few years leading to an economic slump, low investment, high inflation, decline in the value of the rupee and the like have left him with little to say.
