Congress MP Rahul Gandhi, understood to be the de facto president of his party, made a hectic rendezvous in the heat and dust with the farmers of Punjab and to some extent in Haryana on the farm bills, which many termed as Rahul Gandhi version 2.0 or 3.0 depending on how one sees the political graph and career of the Gandhi scion.
The visits got a good traction in both the states, particularly Punjab, as Congress is not only the ruling party in the state and in a position to organize the machinery for the protest marches and public meetings but also the fact that resentment against the laws is spread across the state and amongst all parties, except BJP which brought and then got the Bills hurriedly passed in Parliament.
Two political protests in a row-—first to Hathras in Uttar Pradesh to raise voice for the victim of gang rape of a Dalit girl followed by the food bowel of the country, Punjab and Haryana, catapulted Gandhi as some sort of a “fighter” from his image of a “shirker”. As these visits are not related to elections but concern specific issues, the images and footprint of both Hathras and Punjab would remain imprinted on public consciousness for a while. The image of Gandhi consoling the victim’s father in Hathras and riding a tractor in Punjab would help his cause immensely in the medium to long run.
But there is a rider. Gandhi has shown consistently that he adopts a strategy and abandons it completely and goes for a long political vacation. Hathras and Punjab—the cause of a dalit girl and farmers besides other issues of the subalterns—needs to be sustained and adopted in the long term political strategy of Congress and should not remain a photo opportunity alone. Adopted for a while and then abandoned, something which had become a signature of Gandhi for long, gave his opposition repeated opportunity to project him as a politician aloof from the grind of Indian politics, not suited for the heat and dust and combative brand of grassroots politics. This image can be altered only when there is consistency in political approach and then action plan for each and every issue which concerns the people at large.
You cannot be a part time agitationist and also a part time tourist vacationing in a foreign country when face to face with an extremely combative adversary who is better planned and always a step ahead.
Remember the temple-hopping spree of Gandhi and his attempt to sport a Janeu by proclaiming himself as a Dattatreya Brahmin in the run-up to the last Lok Sabha polls! No one, not even Gandhi, knows what happened to those half-hearted attempts to play the majority religion card and the efficacy of the strategy itself. No one has even asked him if he had gone to a temple after those photo ops and does he wear a Janeu now. Perhaps after getting a thorough drubbing in the 2019 Lok Sabha polls, the Congress strategists who advised him and he himself realised that this was not going to cut any ice with the voters and abandoned the discourse.
Long ago, when UPA was in power and Gandhi was calling the shots, he used to occasionally visit Dalit hamlets in parts of Uttar Pradesh and used to spend evenings and night there, trying to understand what the downtrodden faced. Once, in 2009, he took the visiting British foreign secretary David Miliband along with him to spend a night in such a household which became a media sensation worldwide. But this practice too was abandoned summarily, suggesting lack of consistency and strategy in political methodology adopted. No one has heard if he ever spent a night in a rural household after the Congress led UPA was ousted from power in the 2014 general elections.
Remember the Hathras visit came nine years after his much publicized visit to Bhatta Parsaul village in Greater Noida area during a farmers’ agitation when they were protesting against alleged forcible land acquisition. He was pillion riding a Motorcycle then and had entered the village in solidarity with the agitating farmers and sat on a dharna with them. Then, Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) was ruling the state with Mayawati as chief minister and Gandhi was detained too for a few hours. Of course, Congress led government at the Centre subsequently passed the Land Acquisition Act, 2013 which raised the compensation given to farmers manifold.
Bhatta-Parsaul was a success story of sorts which led to the passage of a Bill, considered extremely friendly to farmers if any government private agency wants to acquire the land. But, Rahul failed to publicise this success story. Perhaps not realizing its significance, he and his party let go an opportunity which could have helped it politically. On the contrary, the Congress came on the defensive when its political opponents targeted it for the Bill, saying it hampered easy land acquisition and prevented industrialists from setting up new units and giving employment.
Gandhi has been put through a tough scrutiny all these years, more so in the post 2014 era when Congress lost to the BJP lock stock and barrel and the decline continued like a free fall. In 2017, as Congress President Gandhi did a magnificent job for his party by trying to halt the BJP juggernaut in its strongest base for decades—Gujarat. The party lost but put up a spirited fight against the political giants—Prime Minister Narendra Modi and then BJP President Amit Shah, both from the same state. The performance of the underdog (Congress) was hailed and it was billed as a new beginning, a new dawn for Congress. This performance was followed by Karnataka where the incumbent Congress government did reasonably well and prevented BJP from forming a government. Victories in Madhya Pradesh, Chhatisgarh and Rajasthan added to the stature of Gandhi and the possibilities of revival became real. But come May 2019 and all advantage was lost. The party simply could not build up the momentum, could not keep the pressure and lost out on issues to tackle its opponent driven by aggressive nationalism and Hindutva. It simply had no answer to the blitzkrieg launched by the BJP in 2019 and surrendered meekly without even putting a semblance of fight.
The question now is when the momentum seems to have slightly become favorable with the Hathras and then Punjab-Haryana foray on the farmers’ issue, will the party, particularly Gandhi, be able to sustain it in the medium to long term? That will be a challenge and also provide answers to the political discourse in the run-up to a series of state assembly elections in the next one and a half years.Many Congress leaders privately say that the practice of starting a campaign or a narrative and then abandoning it midway has to come to an end. A narrative, once adopted and made a part of political strategy, has to continue and given a substantial period of time. The party will have to continue with the Hathras-Punjab model of agitation on issues and this has to be consistent and not sporadic or a flash in the pan—once in two-three years. You have to hit the streets every 2-3 weeks to get public traction and occupy opposition space, not doing it every 2-3 years, Congress workers and leaders say.
Uttar Pradesh assembly polls, scheduled for February-March 2022 are less than one and a half years away. A state where BJP is firmly entrenched under Yogi Adityanath as chief minister, Congress is still considered to be a rank outsider at this juncture despite Hathras and despite the absence of SP-BSP from politics of agitation. Can Congress fill the vacuum of the Opposition here? Can it spring a surprise? Will the Rahul-Priyanka duo be able to project themselves as some sort of an alternative and replace the caste narrative of SP and BSP? Will they come out with a game changer? Do they have it in them? This is what Congress leaders and workers alike are asking. For many within the Congress and outside, the revival of Congress in Uttar Pradesh is the key for success in 2024 general elections. The road to Delhi goes through UP was an old saying but this holds true even at this juncture where a great churning of political process is taking place.
(Senior Resident Editor, The Pioneer, Chandigarh)