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What Justin Trudeau can learn from the Indian election

India will have a new prime minister.

On Friday, India's pro-business party, led by Narendra Modi, defeated the ruling Nehru-Gandhi dynasty (aka the Congress Party) in a landslide victory.

I think most of us will glaze over that story — while India is the world's largest democracy, their prime minister is not going to affect our day to day lives.

But here's why Canadians should pay attention; here's why Justin Trudeau and the Liberal party should pay attention.

The Vice President of the Congress Party — and one of their likely prime ministerial candidates if they had won the election — was none other than Rahul Gandhi, grandson of former prime minister Indira Gandhi and son of former prime minister Rajiv Gandhi.

In other words, he is part of a political dynasty — sort of like Justin Trudeau.

Here's a description of Gandhi's disastrous campaign, as explained by the Associated Press:

"Rahul Gandhi, the dimpled, 43-year-old family scion, had been presented to voters as a youthful leader who could rejuvenate India’s faltering economy, but many saw him as privileged, aloof and out of touch with everyday Indians.

"Rahul is seen as being well-meaning and harmless. But he is devoid of ideas, or a grand vision for what he wants to do for the country,” said Sumit Chakravartty, a political analyst and editor of Mainstream weekly. “He’s a poor communicator. When he does speak, what emerges is further evidence of his fuzzy thinking."

"Privileged"?

"Fuzzy thinking"?

Sound familiar? That's the kind of the narrative that the Conservative Party has touting about Trudeau.

[ Related: India's pro-business Modi storms to historic election win ]

Right-leaning political consultant Gerry Nicholls says that he sees the similarities between the Congress and Liberal party leaders.

"Justin Trudeau has an Indian twin," Nicholls quipped in an email exchange with Yahoo.

"And really that's not all that surprising. Trudeau after all is not unique in the annals of political history. Many politicians have run campaigns based not on well thought out policy ideas, but on style, charisma, celebrity status or by promising to 'do politics differently'. Depending on circumstances, it can be a winning strategy. But if Gandhi has a hard time communicating his ideas, it could hurt his campaign, just as a similar weakness could hurt Trudeau's."

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Pradip Rodrigues, editor of Toronto-based CanIndia News, noted that he too, saw some parallels between the two men when Trudeau first launched his leadership bid.

"Cashing in on his family's last name clearly didn't work for the Congress Party," Rodrigues told Yahoo, referring to Gandhi.

"[The election results] show...that the Indian electorate prefers someone who can actually deliver ideas rather than rely on the Gandhi family [name]. It shows a certain maturity of the Indian electorate. They actually look as issues and the economy.

"Now, when you talk about the gaffes that Justin has made over the years, that shows a certain lack of maturity...that Rahul has displayed throughout this election campaign. In Justin's case, periodically, he's showing to be lacking in substance."

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Contrarily, Paul Dhillon, an editor with Vancouver's The Link newspaper, says the Gandhi-Trudeau comparisons aren't fair.

"Rahul was not effective and is not cut out to be a leader," Dhillon said.

"Trudeau is far superior and won the [Liberal] leadership in a vote and was not simply [handed] it!" he said.

Nevertheless, the lesson for Team-Trudeau is that they shouldn't rely on Trudeau's name or his 'charisma.'

If they believe the Canadian public has the same level of political 'maturity' as the Indian public, they're going to want to see some substance too.

Have we seen enough of that substance yet?

(Photo courtesy of the Canadian Press)

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