One consensus among political analysts is that a defeat for the Congress party is the most plausible outcome of the ensuing 2024 general elections in India.
The grand old party today risks becoming an electoral irrelevance. Its political narrative has boomeranged. The Congress is more often dubbed as being anti-Hindu --- a political facet that suits Narendra Modi.
The BJP likes to present India as a Hindu country which for long paid a big price by pushing a politics of Muslim appeasement. In this debate Modi is seen as a 'saviour' of the Hindu tradition and culture. It is he who delivered the Ram temple at Ayodhya. The Congress stayed away from the grand 'religious' event calling it a Modi and RSS show.
The Congress leaders and even US diplomats give the impression, India was never partitioned and hence Hindus should not have any grudge. The reality is different.
India watcher and French scholar Christophe Jaffrelot aptly says, the Indian opposition has to "recreate the appetite" for good old secular spirit in India.
Today if Modi is able to beat a 10-year-old incumbency, it has also to do with his personal charm. Modi is not only a macho Hindu leader who delivered Ram temple, he is also seen as a tough Prime Minister who ordered bombing some parts of Pakistan to destroy terror camps in 2019. Lately, the BJP leaders do not forget to tell voters that Modi could prevail upon Russian President Vladimir Putin and prevent a nuke war, something US President Joe Biden could not.
It is ironical that even in the last 10 years since 2014, the opposition parties could not create a personna even to take on Modi in Varanasi - not to talk of fighting him at the national level. To understand meticulously, one can say, the Congress and more its leader Rahul Gandhi want to win the polls 'by accident'.
This was possible in 2004 --- when Atal Bihari Vajpayee was voted out. But its 2024 and Narendra Modi is around.
Over the last decate, the opposition parties banked a lot on Congress to anchor a solid opposition unity and the Congress banked on their leader Rahul Gandhi. Everyone forgot, electorally, Rahul has failed utterly in the past - 2014 and 2019. He had even resigned as party president. The G-23 leaders rebelled, but no use.
Everyone appears callous in the opposition camp today. Likes of Ghulam Nabi Azad are no longer in the Congress.
So, many opposition leaders now say, -- we better prepare for 2029 when Modi may face the electorate for the fourth term.
There is yet another factor and a vital one. Rahul Gandhi is a very poor communicator even to his cadres and party colleagues...Often he talks philosophically, so much away from electoral jargons. In contrast, Narendra Modi's biggest asset is oratorical skill and ability to give necessary political spin to certain developments.
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| Blogger in Old Parliament Building |
The Congress is largely seen as a squabbling left-leaning and anti-Hindu outfit arranged around its first family. There is a need to "re-establish" what the Congress stands for. It is also confused. The party could not enforce a sense of accountability on Rahul Gandhi or even Sonia-Priyanka duo.
Rahul continues to rule the show even as an aging Mallikarjun Kharge was made the party president. In the last 10 years over 12 former chief ministers have quit Congress. Leaders like Himanta Biswa Sarma and Jyotiraditya Scindia are from Congress stock but now die-hard Modi admirers and BJP's key leaders both in administration and politicking.
When it comes to playing pro-Hindu cards, the Congress party and Rahul Gandhi pursue all kinds of funny games -- and most of the strategies backfire.
From time to time, he uses phrases like 'janayu dhari Brahmin' for himself. This means he is a Brahmin - high priest caste amongst Hindus.
But he forgets, being Brahmin or taking sacred threads - according to Hindu customs - is inherited from one's father. It is not an issue of making a political choice. In Rahul's case his father-side grandpa was Feroze -- a Parsi and from his mother's side - his roots go back to Italy. In other others, such statements in general sense backfire.
Rahul Gandhi also does temple hopping. In 2019 he visited China and his party tried to link it to his being a Shiv Bhakti - no Hindu voter was carried away by such 'adjectives' from the likes of Randeep Surjewalla.
He also walked parts of his Bharat Jodo Yatra (a word that usually refers to a pilgrimage) in bare feet and often wearing a tilak, a red mark connoting Hindu piety. He has referred to the Bhagavad Gita, a Hindu text, in presenting the Yatra as a "tapasya" .
Voters in Hindi heartland states Chhattisgarh, Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh were simply not bothered and his party was voted out in two states with a huge margin.
Rahul also talks about India's secularism and stresses on religious inclusion. In contrast, Modi and BJP's games are clear -- they are for a new Bharat that will show respect to Hindus and 'do justice' to the Hindu sentiments feeling aggrieved for 800 years and more.
During Bharat Jodo Yatra, Rahul also donned a turban to pay his respects at the Golden Temple in Amritsar, the spiritual centre of Sikhism. People may still remember anti-Sikh pogrom of 1984 when Sikhs were massacred in Delhi after his grand mom Indira Gandhi was assassinated. And more so because, Rahul's dad, late Rajiv Gandhi had said, "When a big tree falls, the earth shakes".
These are legacy issues in negativity - but politically still talked about and sale-able.
Rahul also has a poor sense of timing. And these contribute to establish himself as a non-serious politician. During Bharat Jodo Yatra 2, he was in Nagaland for two days but did not the NDPP-BJP regime at all. His Bharat Jodo Yatra-2 also coincided with Ram temple inauguration on Jan 22, 2024; and hence the cow-belt politics was left unguarded. And during his visit to Assam - on Jan 22 - he tried to enter a Shankardev Shrine and was disallowed !!
In other words, the negative scores could easily outnumber the 'positives'.
Thus Rahul cannot emerge as a real 'counterweight' to Modi’s and his BJP's message of Hindu pride punctuated with right dosage of developments, welfarism and strategies to woo women and farmers.
Well analysts like Tushar Bhadra in Varanasi says, "The Congress tries multiple games and only end up doing some mistakes. After 2014, it has moved closer to Left ideologies and Rahul even was seen among students raising anti-India slogans in JNU in 2016. Secularism is dear to Hindus also but saving 'real secularism and pluralism' is totally different from being anti-Hindu.
The Congress does not have the calibre in today's polity to offer effective 'secular answers' to real communal issues. Misguided strategies cannot win you battles, it can give favourable headlines in a peculiar out-of-touch from reality English media.
The Congress remains clueless when it comes to Pakistani personalities such as Hafeez Saeed !! Rahul's onetime Guru Digvjaya Singh addressed dreaded global terrorist Osama-bin-Laden as Osama-ji.
The faceless Indian voters seldom forget such episodes and if at all they may forget; the BJP's social media spin doctors know how to bring them back in public debate in election season.
In the ultimate, after nearly 20 years as a lawmaker, Rahul Gandhi still represents a puzzle. He is still a figure "ill-prepared" to be a leading neta in the heartless and ruthless world of Indian polity. Everyone feels, he is well cushioned by sycophants on one side and the protection of a mom's love on the other.
The Congress has not still announced whether Priyanka Gandhi will contest from Rae Bareli or not. This maybe the time again for the Congress to dare to think of something radical: come out of the dynasty. Its suicidal either way !!
ends
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