On the same day that Rahul Gandhi posted his resignation from the post of Congress party president, a photojournalist from Mumbai spotted him watching the acclaimed Anubhav Sinha film Article 15 at a PVR cinema in Delhi's Chanakya Complex.
In the video, Rahul can be seen leaning forward waiting for the film to start. Like anyone else who goes for a movie, he eats from a bag of popcorn. The video has since gone viral with over two lakh views as of writing. You can watch the full video here.
The comments on the video reflect the polarisation over the Congress leader — many praised him for being 'down-to-earth' and watching the movie in a regular hall like everyone else. Other cinemagoers who claimed to have been in the theatre hall with him also commended him for sitting there with no security.
Glad to be watching movie like #Article15 in a movie hall with @RahulGandhi it cant be better than this! He is sitting with such normalcy n grace definitely what this country is looking for right now. @INCIndia @ayushmannk @_PVRCinemas @anubhavsinha
— Priyanka Gupta (@priyankavinks) July 3, 2019
Others, however, used the opportunity to poke fun at Rahul for taking time off just shortly after resigning his post.
Rahul had attracted a similar response when he went to watch Star Wars: The Last Jedi in early 2018 after the Gujarat elections.
Rahul is far from the first politician to take to cinema following an electoral loss. Following Rahul's Star Wars foray, former union minister Pawan Kumar Bansal shared an excerpt from Sanjay Kaushik’s viography of Atal Bihari Vajpayee, which details how L.K. Advani and Vajpayee once caught a movie together after a disappointing election result.
For shallow minds who criticise CP Rahul Gandhi for watching a movie to unwind after a gruelling Gujarat elections campaign, here’s an excerpt from the book on Sh. A.B Vajpayee by Sanjay Kaushik. pic.twitter.com/8O9pCRIfo3
— Pawan Kumar Bansal (@pawanbansal_chd) December 20, 2017
The excerpt reads: Mr L.K. Advani, whose association with Mr Vajpayee dates back to those early days when the Jana Sangh was still groping for a toehold in Indian politics, recalls a by-election in which the party candidate lost his deposit. “We waited for the result to be announced. Naturally, we were feeling dejected. I suggested to Atalji, ‘Chaliye, picture dekhte hain.’ We walked into this cinema in Old Delhi and watched a film called, ‘Phir Subeh Hogi’.”
A curious comparison between the three leaders is the film they chose to watch following electoral defeat. While Rahul Gandhi picked the provocative socio-political crime drama that is Article 15, Advani and Vajpayee chose to watch Raj Kapoor's Phir Subah Hogi(1958), which was an adaptation of Fyodor Dostoevsky's novel Crime and Punishment. Of note is the fact that ‘Phir Subah Hogi’ means ‘the morning will dawn again’, suggesting hope in a time of darkness.
