Rahul Gandhi and the folly of Bharat Jodo, Gujarat Chhoddo
The Gujarat results underline the Congress' abdication of responsibility towards the very idea of a liberal India that the party had avowedly taken up to defend and strengthen through the marathon 3780-km Bharat Jodo yatra by their leader Rahul Gandhi.
Why on earth did the Grand Old Party think that it could give the BJP a virtual walkover in PM Narendra Modi's home state? Why did they not realise that a huge win by the BJP there will only strengthen the saffron party's build-up to the 2024 Lok Sabha election, which, by implication, only means a further weakening of the Congress' own 2024 mission?
At a time when the BJP was giving its all in Gujarat, micro-managing every last detail to ensure as emphatic a win as possible, the Congress' 'silent campaign' did not even take off. Fund-starved, they faced charges of short-changing from many leaders. Working president Jignesh Mevani turned to crowdfunding for his campaign. Need more be said?
No wonder, the BJP, while clinching a record 156 seats in the state, systematically demolished the Congress -- in their Dalit and tribal bastions too. Sixteen of the nineteen Muslim-dominated seats also voted for the saffron party. The theory that the All India Majlis-E-Ittehadul Muslimeen (AIMIM), which contested 13 of these 19 seats, might have played spoilsport does not hold since Asaduddin Owaisi's candidates won fewer votes than the winning margins there.
The question that the Congress must ask itself now then is: if even the Muslims are gravitating towards the BJP, how do they justify the utility and effectiveness of the Bharat Jodo idea?
The Congress has been advancing a carefully crafted preemptive argument to insulate the yatra and their leader from possible criticism after the election results. The party has been saying that the yatra shouldn't be seen as an exercise to lift the sagging electoral prospects of the party and is aimed instead at repairing the damage caused by the BJP to the country's social fabric.
Having taken up that position, the party feels it can steer itself clear of any possible attack post results. And that's where the Congress seems to cover up its growing sense of defeatism with a put-on sense of bravado.
Why, in the first place, relegate the political project that any party must essentially pursue as its first priority?
Rahul Gandhi set aside five months of extremely precious time in the run-up to the 2024 elections for the Kanyakumari-to-Srinagar yatra. Of course, the yatra is a well-intentioned initiative. Its three-fold objective of re-establishing social and communal harmony, recharging the disillusioned Congress party workers and leaders and relaunching the leadership of Rahul Gandhi are all good and much-needed programmes.
But hasn't it come rather late in the day? It was undertaken with just a little over 20 months remaining for the 2024 general elections. Ideally, it should have been finished by the first half of this year and the party should have plunged itself headlong into the series of State assembly elections lined up before the 2024 general elections.
It is extremely intriguing why the Congress didn't do so. The virtual abandonment of the most crucial of these state elections -- the Gujarat battle -- was the biggest betrayal of the sloppiness in their thinking.
To be sure, the formidable BJP will not be the Congress' only challenger in 2024. Now, the Grand Old Party also faces a tough challenge from AAP -- a development that is only helping the BJP in its mission to make India 'Congress-mukt'. With each election, the AAP is getting stronger and with it the challenges before the Congress in 2024 seem all the more insurmountable since Arvind Kejriwal's party will increasingly eat into their fast-dwindling vote share.
The utter indifference shown by Congress towards the Gujarat election is also now giving rise to conspiracy theories that the whole idea of the yatra was to counter the Modi government's move against the Gandhi family in the National Herald case. The sceptics are saying that the yatra has succeeded in forcing the Modi government to temporarily hold back further action in the case. PM Modi will not dare to act against Rahul while he walks amidst thousands of people goes the argument of this lot.
The Gujarat walkover to BJP is being seen by these conspiracy theorists as a part of this strategy -- set the battle in the state aside and keep walking instead.
Such insinuations may be misplaced and completely wrong but today's politics, particularly the post-2014 one, is too unsparing and unkind. Congress can only ill-afford to be oblivious to the raking up of such talk as this could further derail their plans to regain a foothold in Indian politics.
Clearly, while there is nothing fundamentally wrong with the Bharat Jodo Yatra, it is running several months behind time. It is being done when the Congress party and Rahul Gandhi's energies should have been focused entirely on hard politics rather than the spectacular walkathon that's possibly going nowhere electorally.
There is no point in studying sociology when you are supposed to pass the examination in political science. The sooner the Congress understands this, the better it is for them and, in turn, for the India that's being rid of its liberal soul.
Else, Rahul's fellow yatri Yogendra Yadav's "Congress should die" remark may get echoed by several quarters that care for the Idea of India and look up to Congress as their best bet to save it.
The author is a freelance journalist based in Nagpur. (AIR NEWS)
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