Not very long ago, the constituent parties of the UPA and those friendly to it were not keeping much in store for Rahul Gandhi as the opposition’s public face. In fact, people still remember that at a lunch thrown by Sonia Gandhi at her residence some months back, top leaders like CPIM’s Sitaram Yechury had suggested the name of Bihar CM Nitish Kumar instead of Rahul’s. Sonia, naturally, had demurred. But of late, Rahul has emerged in a new avatar in Indian politics. Not only has his acceptance amongst people widened, in fact he is being seen as the leader of an ‘alternative politics’. Now, even sly old politicians such as Sharad Pawar are singing peans to the young leader. Just a few days ago, Pawar made it clear at a programme of a Mumbai-based TV channel that he had no intention whatever of moving over to the NDA, and that in recent times, people have started viewing Rahul as an alternative to Modi. This is the same Pawar who not long ago preferred to only talk directly with Sonia Gandhi.