It's official: Indian politics now means Modi versus Rahul
Narendra Modi and Congress leader Rahul Gandhi made a polite handshake following the election of NDA's candidate Om Birla as the Lok Sabha speaker. The two leaders accompanied Birla to the Speaker's chair. That's because Rahul Gandhi now holds a constitutional position which is opposite to PM Modi's. While PM Modi has been elected the leader of the house in the Lok Sabha, Rahul has become the leader of the opposition.
Though Rahul has been seen as the main opponent of PM Modi for long, he was never acknowledged formally as the topmost leader of the opposition. The INDIA bloc of opposition parties led by the Congress did not choose its prime-ministerial candidate ostensibly due to the presence in the opposition bloc of more senior leaders than Rahul such as Sharad Pawar and Mamata Banerjee.
But now, since the Congress has emerged as the biggest opposition party by winning 99 seats, a big improvement over its 2019 tally of 52, the opposition has to accept Rahul as its tallest leader.
A big landmark in Rahul's political journey
Though Rahul entered politics in 2004 when he won for the first time from Amethi in Uttar Pradesh, his real entry in active politics began in 2011 when he visited Bhatta-Parsaul villages in Jewar near Noida and undertook a foot march in the villages along the Yamuna Expressway in support of farmers who were agitating against the land acquisition plans of the Uttar Pradesh government under Mayawati.
That was Rahul's first political outing aimed at influencing the assembly elections the next
