The Ramlila Maidan speech was mostly successful not because of any sort of memorable turn of phrase, but because there wasn't an "escape velocity" moment. Or a "poverty is a state of mind" takeaway. Too many of Rahul Gandhi's public appearances have turned into fodder for absolute skewering on social media, which filters out into the general discourse, that a straightforward, seemingly earnest speech came across as a real achievement. On Monday, the Congress Vice President managed to go even further: he actual managed a few clever lines.

Attacking Prime Minister Narendra Modi's government over its decision to amend the land acquisition bill to make life easier for businesses, Rahul turned sometime weaknesses – a casual, imprecise and extempore approach to language, and an evident discomfort with colloquial Hindi – into somewhat strengths. His relatively casual language meant that Rahul was able to attack the prime minister on everything from being friendly with corporates to getting a "suit" dig in, without seeming like he was breaching Parliamentary decorum.


Despite attempts to unnerve him – the words "Pappu" and "Bangkok" both came up amid yelling from the Bharatiya Janata Party side of the Lok Sabha – Rahul Gandhi by and large managed to hold his own. He spent much of the speech essentially questioning why the "people's Prime Minister" found himself on the wrong side of a debate involving the land acquisition amendment legislation, that the vast majority of Indians, particularly farmers seem to oppose. The Congress has seized upon the land acquisition amendment as a platform from which to take on the Modi government, and has hoped that its Vice President can take the lead on this.

In particular, Rahul's speech managed to get in a few real digs: he insisted that "the Acche Din government has failed India"; he called the Modi government a "suit-boot ka sarkar," a reference to the prime minister's infamous monogrammed suit that became an early symbol of Modi's disconnect from the people and he even pulled out a couple of relevant statistics about the difference between the United Progressive Alliance's approach to agriculture and the current one.


What caught people's attention was, however, Rahul's relative comfort on the big stage. The Congress scion isn't known to be all that comfortable when the spotlight is on him, as evidenced by the infamous interview with Arnab Goswami that truly dented his image in the run-up to last year's general elections. This time around, he was not only reeling off his points with ease, but he even managed to get some back and forth going.

When the treasury benches criticised him for calling Modi, "aapke pradhan mantri," (your Prime MInister), Rahul simply insisted that, while he was India's prime minister, he was also the government's PM. "Kya wo aapke pradhan mantri nahi hai?" (Is he not your prime minister also?) Rahul asked, to some rather overzealous thumping and laughs from the Congress benches. He was pleased enough with the line that he repeated it several times.


The speech would have otherwise been fairly run-of-the-mill coming from anyone else. But because Rahul has failed to make much of a dent in the past, the fact that he was able to not only not make a silly comment, but included a memorable jibe or two – coupled with not having too pugnacious of a response from the government benches – meant the Congress scion will count Monday's "intervention as a win."

The Congress benches' desperation to back their heir apparent and the low expectations from Rahul, however, did not go unremarked upon.