In cricketing parlance, Rahul Gandhi is a bit like Yusuf Pathan. His fans (led by Digvijay Singh) believe he is creator and destroyer rolled into one, his opponents say they are always hard-pressed to jog their memories to recall the last time he played a decent innings, sorry card, and much of the public are taken in by tales of his family (his explosive exploits with the bat in Pathan’s case) but aren’t really sure they can trust him to win the match for them.

While the Congress leadership, which is more like an assembly-line organisation of Digvijay Singhs and Salman Khurshids when it comes to the Nehru-Gandhi family, has tried to junk speculation by giving the Amethi Lok Sabha MP a “bigger role”, making his head the Congress coordination committee for the 2014 elections, the jury is still undecided whether it was the best possible role for him.

The last time Rahul did something worth taking note was back in 2009, when the party won 22 seats from Uttar Pradesh, much, perhaps, to its own shock. Since then, he is best remembered for the assembly poll debacle earlier this year in the same state, when the Congress won only a handful of seats, against the run of tide, general expectation and much, perhaps, to its own shock.

He also addressed stray rallies in several places — on terrain as different as Jharkhand and Kashmir, among others — and made stray comments like 7 out of 10 youths in Punjab are drug addicts and equating FDI in retail with the Kargil war when he sought the opposition NDA’s support on the latter by reminding BJP leaders that the Congress had backed the Vajpayee government during the former. He is lucky that most of his comments did not attract too much media scrutiny, and in effect jibe.

So the question is not whether the Nehru-Gandhi scion is the best possible man to lead the committee to strategise for the elections — he can assume any role in the party, thanks to his family name, and no questions would be raised. The question is whether it is the best possible post for him, whether the party has tried to scotch speculations about the much-discussed “bigger role” for Rahul by effectively pushing him to the sidelines for now.

Yes, Congress chief Sonia Gandhi had, during the party’s recent ‘chintan baithak’ (dialogue session) at Surajkund, pushed for an election coordination committee to be formed within the party at the earliest. But with the polls still a good 18 months away, what will Rahul, Digvijay, Janardhan Dwivedi, Ahmed Patel and the likes strategise for now?

Rahul has, for the last few years, confined himself to Uttar Pradesh, and he is unlikely to be the man in charge of driving the hard bargain with the likes of Samajwadi party, Bahujan Samajwadi Party, DMK/AIADMK, Biju Janata Dal, Trinamool Congress, the Left parties and possible parties launched by rebels like BJP’s Yeddyurappa in Karnataka. And even if he does play a lead role, such parleys are likely to come into play only towards the end of that 18-month gestation period.

With price-rise, the slack employment market and tough measures like the cap on subsidised LPG cylinders expected to play a major role in the next elections, unless P Chidambaram does a miracle in these few months, for now, the Congress would bank more on the UPA government’s performance to give it a platform and a launch-pad for the slog overs. And Rahul Gandhi could have come in handy in those last few months, like Yousuf Pathan in the lower-middle order.

So if Rahul had to be given a significant role, it had to be in the Manmohan government for now, and hopefully make enough noise for him to be heard and seen by the masses. That he isn’t the best strategist around was borne by the UP assembly elections, and playing a role not best suited to his aptitude, and for over a year at that, is a bit of a gamble. Like playing Pathan in place of Rahul Dravid, or Cheteswar Pujara now.

So, back to the question: why the hurry in making Rahul Gandhi the face of the poll-bound Congress? Is it to leave him out of harm’s way till push comes to shove? Or has the Congress realised more than it is willing to reveal?

But the mother of all questions, as the party gets ready to present Rahul Gandhi as its PM candidate, is: is he a decent enough crowd puller or crowd pleaser? You don’t need to be either as Manmohan Singh, or PV Narasimha Rao before him, showed. But that’s a tall ask for a Gandhi, right?