Despite Oppn backing, Congress at a crossroads
CONGRESS leader Rahul Gandhi was disqualified from the Lok Sabha last week after a Surat court convicted him in a defamation case over the ‘Modi surname’ remark, which he had made more than 1,000 km away in Karnataka in 2019. The development has virtually fast-tracked the build-up to the 2024 General Election.
Suddenly, the entire non-BJP/NDA Opposition has stood up in solidarity with Rahul. Arvind Kejriwal, Mamata Banerjee, Pinarayi Vijayan and KC Chandrashekar Rao, Chief Ministers of Delhi, West Bengal, Kerala and Telangana, respectively, often considered hostile to Rahul and the Congress, swiftly attacked the BJP, terming the disqualification a death knell for democracy and a metamorphosis of BJP’s vindictive politics into autocracy. Several other prominent leaders, such as Akhilesh Yadav, Jayant Chaudhary, Hemant Soren, Uddhav Thackeray and Sharad Pawar, have termed the development as the BJP’s authoritarian attack on Indian democracy.
These remarks may be music to Rahul’s ears, but the future roadmap for the grand old party is tricky. The first roadblock in the way of a united Opposition is Rahul’s own reluctance to take everyone on board. The Gandhi scion, who has been in politics since 2004, has shown little interest in warming up to the likes of Mamata, Kejriwal and Nitish Kumar, while Tamil Nadu Chief Minister MK Stalin continues to be a notable exception. On many occasions, Rahul did not mince words while criticising the then Uddhav Thackeray dispensation, even though the Congress was then a part of the Shiv Sena-led ruling coalition in Maharashtra.
Unlike the 1975-77 movement against the Emergency, the 1987-89 Bofors scandal or the 2011-13 India Against Corruption stir, the Opposition lacks an anchor such as Jayaprakash Narayan, VP Singh or Anna Hazare. The Congress may also take note of how JP, VP, or Anna were able to involve numerous student unions, lawyers, media personnel, trade unions and others in their campaigns. These stakeholders in democratic values greatly helped the political parties and individuals achieve their goal of dislodging those in power.
At present, the Congress’ organisational network is near-defunct and not in a position to launch an effective public campaign in support of Rahul Gandhi. The mood and morale of the party rank and file are nowhere near the spirit of 1977 when the Congress went out of power for the first time.
In the 1977 General Election, Rahul’s uncle Sanjay Gandhi made sure that Youth Congress leaders were given 100-odd Lok Sabha tickets. As a result, the Youth Congress of the Sanjay era remained fiercely loyal to the leadership. When the counting for the 1977 Lok Sabha elections was going on in the Tis Hazari court of Delhi, jubilant Janata Party and Jana Sangh workers coined a slogan to mock the Congress — ‘Congressi dikhao, sau rupaiya pao (show a Congressman and win Rs 100)’. Some party veterans chose to bear the humiliation, but the Youth Congress leaders decided to hit back, even though the counting had shown that all Congress nominees from Delhi were trailing. ‘Haan hum hain Congressi, lao sau rupaiya,’ they retorted.
In the days after the verdict against Rahul and his subsequent disqualification, Congress protests in various parts of the country have been patchy and perfunctory, even failing to get the local media’s attention. Rahul’s ire against mediapersons will not help the party’s cause. In his scheme of things, Rahul wishes to keep the spotlight on Adani’s ‘relationship’ with Prime Minister Narendra Modi and not on the defamation case.
Rahul must look back to the days of the Bofors controversy and see how the then Opposition had benefited from the media investigations against the Rajiv Gandhi government. His allegations of financial wrongdoings or compromises on matters of national security would have a greater ring of credibility if they were backed or corroborated by media reports.
Throughout his Bharat Jodo Yatra, Rahul leaned heavily on civil society groups and activists such as Medha Patkar, who are known for their left-of-centre ideology. The big question is whether Rahul would be able to rope in these civil society groups in his latest make-or-break survival campaign. The possibility of drafting student unions, trade unions and lawyers’ bodies is even more daunting. Rahul’s ratings are reportedly very low among the millennium kids. Similarly, most of the lawyers’ bodies have little association with the Congress or its ideological moorings.
Since the 1991 economic reforms, the trade unions have moved away from the Congress, so much so that its staunch supporter, Indian National Trade Union Congress (INTUC), is often not on the same page as the parent organisation. The INTUC, in its 33rd plenary held recently, urged the Congress to reconsider the economic policies it had been following since 1991 and go back to the ‘Nehruvian’ path of mixed economy.
In a nutshell, Rahul may have claimed the moral high ground and collectively, the Opposition may be sensing an opportunity in Rahul’s disqualification, but regional satraps and the Congress may find it difficult to work out political synergy because such a collaboration fundamentally entails a mindset to bring the leadership and the campaign together. One-upmanship, personal ambitions and the rival camp’s machinations are some of the easy tools that can demolish the prospect of political synergy if an anchor is not in place.
