If the Congress ever decides to make a teaser trailer for its 2019 campaign, it should consider ending it with Rahul Gandhi saying: “Dekha aapne? Shuru ho gaya na kaam?” The party boss is often mocked for his public gaffes, but this one — a happy one-liner backed up by announcements about farm loan waivers in Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh — is a winner.

Yesterday, Kamal Nath, the new chief minister of Madhya Pradesh, cleared a proposal for waiving farm loans worth upto Rs 2 lakh. He did this just hours after taking oath. And in Chhattisgarh, Chief Minister Bhupesh Baghel said short-term crop loans of lakhs of farmers, drawn from cooperative banks and the Chhattisgarh Gramin Bank (as on November 30, 2018), would be waived.

So, promises made, promises kept. “Did you see?” Rahul Gandhi told a couple of reporters today as he walked past them, looking positively delighted. “Did you see? The work has started, hasn’t it? (Shuru ho gaya na kaam?).”

Then, a quick about-turn, and Rahul was gone.

You can’t blame Rahul Gandhi for being in a great mood these days. Until this month, India’s political map was steeped in saffron. But now, there’s a big slash of Congress blue right at the centre. Rahul’s party runs governments in three Hindi belt states.

And this Sunday, MK Stalin of the DMK gave the Congress boss a reason to smile even wider. He backed him to be the opposition’s prime ministerial candidate in 2019, when India will hold a general election. Not everyone liked the idea, though. A senior leader from the All India Trinamool Congress said any announcement on a candidate for the PM’s post now would be “premature” as “it would divide the Opposition camp”.

The Lok Sabha polls are still a few months away, but don’t expect the BJP and the Congress to wait to start scoring political brownie points. “Shuru ho gaya” indeed, in more ways than one.