A spurious debate about the legitimacy of Rahul
Gandhi’s elevation, undoubtedly fuelled by the BJP, did not
play too well. The BJP’s star campaigner Narendra Modi sought to amplify it in a
campaign speech in Gujarat. He certainly couldn’t have believed his
intervention would influence the Congress party’s choice. In any case, it did
not set the Sabarmati on fire.
Despite Modi’s futile name-calling, the issue
is finally and firmly settled. Gandhi will become president of the Indian
National Congress, the 60th person to hold the office.
Not content to have lowered the dignity of
his office by giving credence to the legitimacy debate, PM Modi made another
attempt to denigrate the election of Gandhi. In a dog whistle address seemingly
directed at his Hindutva base, he compared the elevation to the coronation of
the Mughal emperor Aurangzeb,
whose very mention is a red flag to the bigots who have and have been championed
by Modi.
As such, Modi unwittingly reinforced the
Opposition’s charge that during his stint in power, he has never conveyed a
sense of unifying India, never once rising above the level of a BJP partisan, a
prime minister for BJP supporters.
For some reason, Modi and the BJP find it
difficult to accept Gandhi as president of his party. Saffron loyalists may
well cast aspersions and kick up a fuss, but it’s a done deal.
Meanwhile, Gandhi has shown his ability to
lead the grand old party by running a spirited campaign in Gujarat. He sewed up
unconventional alliances with grass-roots activist movements; he delivered
powerful speeches criticising the BJP’s “development” story. He may have made a
huge impact on the BJP’s fortunes in a state where most believed victory in the
Assembly elections would be a cake walk.
His success has the BJP rattled in its
fortress where Modi perfected his “Hindu Hriday Samrat” appeal and concocted
the story of the “Gujarat model” of development. It was this latter story that
seemed to appeal to a broader section of people than the Hindutva manifesto.
This presumably enabled the BJP to increase its vote share in 2014 to 31 percent, and
by virtue of the first-past-the-post system, emerge with the first-ever
absolute majority in Parliament since 1984, when Rajiv Gandhi won 400-plus
seats for the Congress.
Rahul Gandhi went hammer-and-tongs after the
Gujarat model. He accused Modi of running a “suit-boot sarkar” that only
catered to the needs of big business. Coming on the heels of the controversy
over Modi’s penchant
for luxuries, including prohibitively expensive
monogrammed-pinstripe suits, striking watches and designer glasses, the charge
had the impact of a right hook.
That’s not all: in an early speech, Rahul
minced no words in a full-scope attack on Mr Modi, who spoke before him during
the winter session of Parliament in 2015:
“...while I listened to the Prime Minister’s
speech I could see how profoundly we differ in our thinking. For Modiji, the
people he mentioned (Gandhi, Patel, Ambedkar, Prasad, even Nehru) were
intellectual heroes to be worshipped and placed on a pedestal. They had all the
answers to India’s problems.
“For me what was heroic about the people he
mentioned was their ability to listen to the people of this country. They are
my heroes not because they had all the answers but because they had the
humility to ask the right questions… to listen to what India was saying. They
allowed India to speak.”
During the Gujarat campaign, he picked up on
this theme to scoff at Modi’s “Mann ki Baat” radio addresses. He said he wasn’t
here to tell people what he thinks but to listen to what they have to say.
In the event, he managed to strike a chord
with diverse audiences: youth, women, backward castes, tribals, dalits,
students, parents, professionals, traders and merchants. He talked about the
need to offer, in addition to private options, government alternatives in
healthcare and education. His message clearly resonated with audiences whether
delivered in a speech or in townhall-style interactions.
Gandhi hit out at demonetisation as a cunning
attempt to help cronies launder black money, calling it a “fair and lovely”
scheme. He excoriated the government’s messed
up GST scheme, calling it “Gabbar Singh Tax”; he offered
examples of misplaced priorities saying the Rs 33,000-crore subsidy for the
Tata Nano plant was the amount the UPA government had spent in an entire year
of the national employment guarantee scheme that gave hundreds of thousands
jobs and changed their lives forever. “How many Nanos have you seen?” he thundered.
Gandhi’s earnest exertions in Gujarat seem to
be paying off. A recent survey
has the Congress running neck-and-neck with the BJP. This was simply
unthinkable a few weeks ago. The Modi-Shah duo was presumed unbeatable in their
home state.
Now the game’s been thrown wide open and the
Congress is in with a better-than-even chance in next week’s election. Almost
as if in recognition of the effort, the Congress party nominated him president.
(This
article appeared in Dailyo.in, December 7, 2017)
