Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi’s assertion at a public meeting in Uttar Pradesh that the next regime will be a “Government of the youth and poor” is reassuring to Congress workers in a modest way.
Caught in the throes of mounting anti-incumbency caused by political and economic mismanagement, supporters of the UPA-not least in the media-have been grappling with uncertainty over what the incumbent administration’s 2014 poll plank will be.
Rahul hasn’t provided all the answers but at least he has clearly indicated that a Bharat versus India theme garnished with the 1970s Indira Gandhi-style populism will be a key feature of the Congress’ poll plank.
Clearly, the foot soldiers of the Congress are in dire need of some direction in the face of a concerted Narendra Modi offensive that seems to be gathering more and more momentum with each passing day and even threatening to sweep away everything in its path. For many months the Congress has been in a state of strategic confusion and even a measure of clarification has been welcomed by all those who feel threatened by a Modi victory.
The reasons why the Congress has been tardy in responding to a formidable challenge are worth exploring. For a start, the Congress always felt that the status of Modi in the BJP and NDA would always be ambiguous. Fed on assessments by “experts” and “insiders” that Modi wouldn’t ever be acceptable to the Sangh fraternity, it laid great store on an unending tussle between an old guard that was wary of Modi and the party rank and file that believed it was Modi or nothing. Any tentativeness on Modi’s status would have allowed the Congress to sit back and gloat over unending sniper attacks on the Gujarat Chief Minister.
There was also a section of the Congress that genuinely believed that Modi’s appeal was limited to a fringe in the BJP and that his mere entry into the national arena would lead to an automatic swelling of the anti-Modi ranks. Perhaps, the US-educated advisers of the shahzada invoked the record of Barry Goldwater whose candidature enthused a small fraction of the Republican Party but contributed to lyndon Johnson’s landslide victory in 1964.
Whatever the reasons, the Congress was caught unawares by the rapidity of political developments between June and September. Three months may be too long a time for decisive decision-making in a corporate boardroom but for a political party a quick-fire decision was near miraculous.
Yet, the Congress persisted in viewing Modi as a mere regional player with limited or no appeal outside Gujarat. This may explain why a disproportionate number of Congress leaders from Gujarat were wheeled out for TV appearances to counter Modi supporters.
The tactic was based on condescension. Modi, it was felt, didn’t deserve the big guns blazing against him; obscure references to corruption in, say, Surendranagar and Mehsana and poor human development record in Gujarat would be enough to puncture his claims.
It was after a series of very successful rallies in Hyderabad, Jaipur, Rewari and Delhi that the Congress deemed it necessary to even acknowledge that they were being confronted by a force multiplier with a rock star appeal. No wonder Finance Minister P Chidambaram has been propelled into launching a frontal attack on a man who was earlier deemed too insignificant to even merit acknowledgment by the top leadership.
This strategic miscalculation by the Congress has induced a sense of panic in the Congress. It is now realised by its thinkers that invoking the Nehruvian “idea of India” and leaving it to a few intellectuals to battle a popular surge was going to be grossly inadequate. Indeed, it has been the Congress’ tribe of intellectuals who have sounded the alarm bells-witness the pathetic attempt to blame the Modi ripple for the Muzaffarnagar riot and the desperate bid to persuade the UPA leadership to smuggle the contentious Communal Violence Bill through the final sessions of the 15th lok Sabha.
What this dread of Modi may have done is to force the Congress into devoting a major chunk of its campaign into a high-cost publicity campaign aimed at “exposing” the Gujarat Chief Minister as a poor administrator, a man who devours Muslims and who may lead us into a nuclear war. Projecting Modi as the Devil incarnate will form a big part of the Congress’ campaign plank for 2014.
Whether such an approach works or not, such an approach will inevitably make Modi the main figure of the election. This may unite the anti-Modi forces into forging a grand alliance of the bent and the beautiful but there is an associated risk of popularising Modi to an audience that had either never heard of him or not known too much about him till a month ago.
That the Congress may be willing to take that risk is indicative. It suggests that the party is loath to focus too much attention on its ten-year record of governance, and even unwilling to showcase its own leadership too much. This is understandable. For all his other charms, Rahul has shown himself to be notoriously erratic and temperamental. In the course of a fortnight he has undermined the Prime Minister to the point of mockery, been unmindful of the Congress’ allies and rubbed potential allies such as Mayawati and Mulayam Singh Yadav up the wrong way. And there is still another six months of intense campaigning left.