As if spit out from the same run as the rest of the routine political speeches, vows, and fiery rhetoric which went into the delivery of the 2024 Haryana Assembly elections, a completely unwanted figure found itself thrown to the center of this electoral fight: humble jalebi. The coiled, syrup-soaked treat earned a talking point among electors, thanks to Congress leader Rahul Gandhi, who catapulted the popular snack to that place of metaphoric politics without warning.
The jalebi factor” began in Haryana politics when Congress leader Rahul Gandhi visited the city of Gohana, where he was campaigning. Haryana Congress Deepender Singh Hooda gave him jalebis from Maturam Halwai, the sweet shop at the end of the street. Not too long after that, Rahul Gandhi promptly wrote on Twitter it was “the best jalebi” he had ever tasted in his entire 54 years and didn’t hesitate to declare his love for the dessert. He even went to tell his sister Priyanka Gandhi that he was bringing a box of sweets.
And this declaration of culinary love affair was not the end of the story. Rahul Gandhi drooled on the jalebi as an emblem of local pride and economic potential. He proposed that those jalebis were churned out on an industrial mass scale, foreseeing a scenario wherein Gohana’s famous jalebis would be available all over the country and even across the globe. In his head, a jalebi factory would bring employment and prosperity to the area since it would afford employment to thousand-s.
A Sweet Symbol Turns Sour for Congress
And that was a harmless anecdote, indeed touching, relating Rahul Gandhi’s newfound love of jalebis. BJP did not let it pass and made fun of the jalebi remarks of the Congress leader. It was just after the ridicule of BJP supporters for the Congress leader’s focus on desserts because there are much bigger things to be staked at; otherwise, that topic has become quite a subject of satirical posts on social media about Jalebis factories.
As results began trickling in on Tuesday and it became apparent that the BJP was to form the government for a record third term in Haryana, jalebi was a priority as the centerpiece for politically charged jibes against the Congress. Quickly to attack Rahul Gandhi for what they perceived as empty gestures were BJP leaders and its supporters – Union minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan being one of them. Chouhan said, “Rahul Gandhi sometimes takes a team to the field for a photo shoot or has jalebi just to boast about. But the public sees everything-they know who is working and who is just making a show.”
There was no relieving moment to the jalebi moment of Rahul Gandhi’s social media trolling. Memes, jokes, and satirical comments have filled X and others, where most people insist that “jalebi factories do not exist” and have ridiculed the sugar-coated promises of the Gandhi man. Satirist Kamlesh Singh has a particularly trending post that features a picture of Maturam Halwai’s shop with a completely nonsensical comment suggesting that this sweet shop would have lost money if Gandhi’s vision of a jalebi factory had come true.
The Political Weight of Jalebis
Where an innocuous campaign incident turned into a metaphor for Congress’s supposed wrongdoings in Haryana, it became the electoral battle stakes. The BJP proves able to turn something so ordinary and saccharine-inclined–a jalebi anecdote-becomes a pointed criticism of the strategy adopted by Congress to win elections. Those in the agricultural sector with unemployment issues and problems within governance singlingly consider Rahul Gandhi’s fixation on jalebis out of touch.
In truth, the jalebi affair reveals something a good deal deeper about the nature of modern Indian politics: the rising importance of symbolism and optics. Indeed, when every word and every action is placed under the lens on social media, a seemingly innocuous dessert like jalebi can turn into a political significance. The BJP could create an issue of jalebi as an attack on Congress for not showing seriousness regarding the core concerns of Haryana. Here once more, Congress attempted to connect with people through local culture and gastronomical pride.
Working of Local Businesses in Political Discourses
It was this very statement by Rahul Gandhi, which said that Maturam’s jalebi will now be pan-Indian too, that brought forth the functioning of local businesses in political discourses. Perhaps, with reference to the local sweet, Gandhi was trying to touch voters’ hearts by using local culture and making an entry point for issues within the people’s quotidian life in the state with his national stature. It was the transformation of small local shops into factories that impressed upon the broader themes of statelevel economic development and employment.
As if the BJP has been dismissive of the jalebi factory, it must be noted that the idea of promoting local industries for more employment opportunities is not something newly conceived in Indian politics. Be it “Make in India” or promises of support to small-scale industries, politicians across the spectrum have espoused local products and industries to create emotional and economic ties with their electorates.
Perhaps, this will be remembered for all eternity that BJP came out triumphant and Congress was not able to make it good enough to revoke the incumbent party victory during the 2024 Haryana elections. For the voters, though, this will also turn out to be a political campaign where the precious moment when any simple dessert gained almost-significant importance. The jalebi with its complex curled shape came as a fitting metaphor for twists and turns in political rhetoric within the state.
Even as the results started pouring in and settled its victory, even the sweet indicating connection and hope for Rahul Gandhi was put on and used to poke fun, do a political attack against him. It brought home that in the world of Indian elections, which is pretty rough-and-tumble, even the sweetest of gestures can turn sour.
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