If the proverb morning shows the day holds true, the Congress shouldn’t be expecting too much in terms of delivery from its new election coordination committee chief in the 2014 elections. Going by his debut speechification in Gujarat yesterday, ahead of the first-phase polling on Dec 13, that is.

Invoking Mahatma Gandhi isn’t the best option available to get back at the man your mother called “maut ka saudagar” barely five years ago. In fact, it shouldn’t exist in the list of options at all. But then, that’s Rahul Gandhi for you, the “baba” who remains a baba even past forty, a man for all seasons so far as injudicious quotable quotes are concerned, critics would say. His defenders in the party have, of course, started raising noise about the Amethi MP doing the kind-of unthinkable: raiding the den and raring the lion in his own fiefdom.

But the question remains for the Congress to answer much after the last vote is polled on December 17, the results declared three days later and the last analysis piece written: is this the best the “yuvraj, the prince, Congress’s as-yet-undeclared PM-in-waiting can muster?

We zoom in on Gandhi’s five quotable quotes in his two public rallies on December 11, at Jamnagar first and Sanand, to check whether those were the best he could come up with:

# 1: “Many people think Gandhiji's thoughts are outdated. I would like to tell why I consider him my guru. Sometime we have to make rules in order to adhere to principles. Gandhiji said we should listen to the opinion of all people.

The opposition: Not the best opening line — neither to connect nor to reconnect with a line, or a state, lost. Philosophy has a shelf life for sure but it does not quite gel with real politick; else BJP and company would be running the state of affairs from South Block and thr Left Front, among others, would not be limited to one state or thereabouts.

# 2: “A true leader should empathise with his people.”

The opposition: Sure. And Oxford dictionary explains the word empathise as “understand and share the feelings of another”. So, a true leader like whom, according to Gandhi? Manmohan Singh? Who, by his own admission, prefers his silence to be better than a thousand answers? Not exactly a great option of a leader for a nation.

# 3: “Look at the UPA government and its programmes and tell me which one has taken away the voice of the people.”

The opposition: Let’s ask a question in return? Why did oil minister Veerappa Moily, not exactly a spring chicken in politics, announce raising the cap on subsidised LPG cylinders with hours to go for the Gujarat polls, only to be rapped on the knuckles, so to speak, by the election commission? If that decision to put a cap at six cylinders a year wasn’t a decision that didn’t pay heed to the popular voice, few, least of all the Amethi MP, can come up with another instance.

# 4: “There is good marketing of the state. You get water once in three days but the marketer (read Modi) says Gujarat is shining.”

The opposition: A bad example to take. Water supply and electricity supply, as well as the rates, are an issue close to the heart of not only next door to Gandhi’s Lutyens’ Delhi but even in several Congress-ruled states, Maharashtra and Andhra Pradesh perhaps topping the list.

# 5: “He (Modi) has his dream and he thinks only about his own dream.... In Gujarat, the assembly functions for only 25 days a year and when it does, the opposition is thrown out."

The opposition: And doesn’t the good MP go on foreign trips when Parliament sessions are on? Didn’t he miss the President's address to Parliament on March 12 during the budget session, and the railway budget on March 14? (LINK: http://indiatoday.intoday.in/story/uttar-pradesh-poll-debacle-rahul-gandhi-off-to-foreign-holiday/1/183352.html). But the best retort came from Modi himself. He tweeted: "Mr Rahul Gandhi talks of respect for Vidhan Sabha but his own attendance in Lok Sabha between May 2011-May 2012 was 24 out of 85 sittings."