It began not with a whisper, but with a political detonation across the Gangetic plains. Last week, Bihar, always a keen weathervane for shifting political winds, delivered a verdict so mortifying for the Congress that even its most seasoned apologists struggled to dress it up. Contesting 61 seats, the party staggered out with a miserable six. It wasn’t a defeat—it was a spectacle of collapse. And at its centre, as always, stood Rahul Gandhi, the prudish prince of a shrinking empire, presiding over the most dramatic political implosion in the history of a once-dominant national party.

For nearly two decades, Rahul has been more apparition than architect in national politics. Occasionally, he appears with rhetorical flurries and theatrical social media declarations, only to recede just as

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