By forcing the Government to withdraw the unpopular ordinance on convicted lawmakers, the Congress vice president has shed his reluctant-politician image and sought to distance his family and party from the scam-tainted UPA regime
The Congress’s first family has an uncanny ability to make strategic comebacks after being hit by multiple crises. Something like this happened on September 27 when Congress vice president Rahul Gandhi, made a surprise appearance at the Press Club in Delhi. He denounced a controversial ordinance on convicted lawmakers, that had already been passed by the Union Cabinet, as “complete nonsense”, and deeply embarrassed his own Government and the Prime Minister. This took everyone by surprise, including the Opposition and the Congress. Finally, the Government had to withdraw the ordinance, thus bowing to the moral high ground Mr Gandhi took.
If we look at Mr Gandhi’s list of political achievements and experiences till date, this move was a masterstroke in terms of positioning himself as a serious politician and shedding the ‘pappu’ tag. At the same time, it must also be admitted that the unbelievable scenes that one is witnessing today, in terms of convicted MPs losing their seats in Parliament, would not have been possible without Mr Gandhi taking a stand against this ordinance. The scrapping of the ordinance is also a big win for the judiciary.
But from here on, things will be challenging for Mr Gandhi as there will be more scrutiny of his actions. People will expect him to take the same kind of principled stand against all sorts of wrongdoing, whether these involve the big sharks of his party or relatives.
But politics is not about propriety only. Ultimately, it’s about politics. And the political code of Mr Gandhi’s latest posturing can be broken into three parts: First, it is about a change of guard in the Congress; second, it is about political realignments and new coalition equations; and third, it is a deliberate attempt to disassociate the family and the party from all the unpopular decisions of the Government led by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.
Mr Gandhi’s recent rhetoric has made it clear that a transition of leadership is underway in the Congress, where the young brigade led by the vice president will assert itself on crucial issues. Mr Gandhi’s outburst can also be read as a sign that the dual power-centre formula, established by Congress president Sonia Gandhi after the 2004 general election, is now on its last legs.
But this formula still has significant support from some senior Congress Ministers who privately aspire for the Prime Minister’s post. Mr Gandhi’s stern message was directed at these influential Ministers — rather than Prime Minister Singh — who control most of the Government machinery and whom Mr Gandhi sees as the real architects of the unpopular ordinance. By this single act of defiance, the Congress vice president has conveyed in no uncertain terms that enough is enough and from now on he will lead from the front and there will be no dual power-centres.
Mr Gandhi’s move also indicates that the churning that one saw in the BJP sometime back has now started in the Congress as well. It has always been the case that Mr Gandhi’s reluctance to take on more political responsibility would disappear the moment he felt confident that he is in control of the party organisation. Now, he is close to that.
The context and timing of Mr Gandhi’s rebel act also reveals the calculations of his camp. His outburst came just a day after the Raghuram Rajan Committee for Evolving a Composite Development Index of States submitted its report, which helped set the agenda of politicking in the Congress camp. This report placed Bihar high on the list of least developed States even as it proposed an end to the ‘special category’ criterion. Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar hailed the suggestion as “an ideological victory” for his people and said that it would pave the way for receiving more funds from the Union Government for the State’s development. This has further raised the prospects of a formal alliance between Mr Nitish Kumar’s JD(U) and the Congress. The two parties already have an informal understanding ever since the JD(U) snapped its ties with the BJP. Besides, it is believed that though Mr lalu Prasad and his RJD have been most loyal to the Congress president, Mr Gandhi prefers Mr Nitish Kumar as a future ally. Moreover, Mr lalu Prasad stands convicted and sentenced to a five-year term in jail.
At the same time, the report also put Gujarat in the category of less developed States and, therefore, indirectly questioned the efficacy of the Gujarat model of development pioneered by Chief Minister Narendra Modi, now the BJP’s prime ministerial candidate. The idea is to create confusion about the developmental claims of Mr Modi and highlight Mr Nitish Kumar.
last Friday, Mr Gandhi faced the Press and the nation in what his admirers say was a courageous manner. He presented himself as an honest and decisive leader who does not hesitate to take on even his Prime Minister on issues of propriety. With this one stroke, he also sought to steal the Opposition’s thunder at a critical moment when it was planning to launch a massive onslaught on the Government for shielding convicted politicians.
Finally, Mr Gandhi’s use of strong words was not for the ordinance alone. The Congress vice president’s outburst goes beyond: It refers to the multiple failures of the UPA Government and, in the process, seeks to convince the common man that he, Rahul Gandhi, is equally disheartened and disillusioned by the poor governance record of the incumbent regime. His message is that the Government and the Gandhis are different entities, that the Government may be ‘bad’, but the people can still vote for the ‘good’ Congress in the next election.