Congress leader Rahul Gandhi’s disqualification from the Lok Sabha has almost all the Opposition parties, including Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal’s Aam Aadmi Party and West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee’s Trinamool Congress, voicing their support to him. For the grand old party, Rahul’s disqualification is a “murder of democracy”, although the fact remains the indictment by the Surat Court over his speech from 2019, followed the procedures laid down by the Supreme Court in its judgement of 2013, which was then supported by Rahul Gandhi himself. Mustn’t.
Nevertheless, Congress wants to propagate that Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the BJP are “scared of Rahul Gandhi”. Elections to the Lok Sabha are only a year away and the Congress doesn’t want to let go of such a crucial issue that brings the focus back on Rahul Gandhi. However, here lies the problem. While Congress wants to keep the focus on Rahul Vs Modi, the Opposition parties have trouble with it. They are merely supporting Rahul on the issue only to portray themselves as being against the BJP and nothing more.
Opposition leaders such as Kejriwal, Mamata Banerjee, Telangana Chief Minister K Chandrashekar Rao, who heads the Bharat Rashtra Samithi, and Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar of Janata Dal (United) too are said to be eyeing the Prime Minister’s post just like Rahul Gandhi, though he may deny it. In addition to this, Mamata, Nitish and Rao are far senior to Rahul and would have their own hesitations working under his leadership, if at all.
Just days ahead of Rahul’s disqualification, Mamata herself had said, as reported in the media, that “Rahul Gandhi is PM Modi’s biggest TRP”. Her statement came at a time when the ruling BJP was stalling the proceedings of Parliament over Rahul’s comments attacking the state of Indian democracy during his visit to the United Kingdom. She was not wrong. It’s not only unusual but simply not done that the Treasury benches stall Parliament. However, this was done by the saffron party to hit out at Rahul, who had made waves during his Bharat Jodo yatra as well as break ranks in the Opposition, trying to forge a united front against Modi in the upcoming 2024 polls.
The grand old party must understand that the politics of the country has gone through a complete change. It is no longer a strong force as it used to be. Even in States like Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Haryana, Gujarat, Uttarakhand and Himachal Pradesh– where its ruling in some and in others remains the main opponent to the BJP, there is a big question mark on how the Congress will fare in the 2024 battle. In the last 2019 General elections, the BJP almost swept these States and in Gujarat, AAP emerged as a force by mostly eating into the Congress base as was seen in the State Assembly polls in December last year.
On the other hand, in States like Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, West Bengal, Tamil Nadu, Odisha and Andhra Pradesh, the grand old party has been reduced to a minor force. In Tamil Nadu, the Congress is completely dependent on its ally DMK to even win a single seat. In Maharashtra, although Congress is a force to reckon with, it doesn’t have the strength to challenge the BJP on its own alone. It is dependent on its allies Shiv Sena (UBT) of former Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray and Sharad Pawar’s Nationalist Congress Party.
Given the situation of Congress, parties like AAP and TMC are trying to fill the vacuum created by it. In Delhi, which is AAP’s stronghold, the rise of Kejriwal has been at the cost of the Congress, which failed to win a single seat in the past two Assembly polls. The contest is largely bipolar between AAP and BJP. In Punjab, AAP came to power by defeating the incumbent Congress government. The case of Gujarat is already mentioned above.
If Congress continues to sleep, it is likely to even lose the space of main Opposition in Gujarat in the near future. Nationally, AAP can be a part of the Opposition, but on the ground it has to fight against Congress too. It was this contradiction that prevented the grand old party from lending its voice of support to AAP when its then Education Minister and Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia was arrested.
Although West Bengal based TMC isn’t yet successful in spreading its wings outside its stronghold, its attempts in Goa, Assam, Tripura and Meghalaya were executed by poaching top leaders of Congress. In the Goa polls last year, TMC ate into the vote share of the grand old party. Same happened in Meghalaya Assembly elections held early this year where Congress didn’t perform well as a major portion of its votes went to the TMC’s kitty.
More than that, Congress is an opponent of TMC in West Bengal and its leader in the Lok Sabha, Adhir Chowdhury, also State unit’s President, is known to be a staunch critic of Mamata Banerjee. His statements oft reiterating that TMC is a B-team of BJP, have not gone well with the senior leadership of TMC. Besides, after the loss of Sagardighi bypoll seat to Left supported Congress candidate Byron Bishas, the TMC has been forced to go into introspection mode. Although Mamata has tried to give a signal of being soft towards Congress after Rahul’s disqualification, much would depend on the latter. If it maintains its partnership with CPM, TMC’s arch rival in the State, then the TMC’s current malleability towards the party isn’t going to last long.
Just look at the recent developments in Maharashtra, where the Opposition alliance of Maha Vikas Aghadi, in a position to challenge the BJP-led NDA, has developed fissures between Shiv Sena (UBT) and Congress over Rahul’s immature statement over freedom fighter Veer Savarkar. In Bihar, the JD(U) initially maintained a distance on Rahul’s disqualification issue but later joined the Opposition chorus. The message wasn’t lost and JD(U) silently reminded Congress to keep in mind the ground reality of Indian politics, that there’s a world beyond Rahul Gandhi. Kerala’s ruling party CPM, which has been an ally of Congress in almost every state, also maintained a distance as in the southern state the Left and Congress are sworn enemies. Samajwadi party, which also came in support of Rahul Gandhi, is not keen to strike an alliance with the Congress after realising its blunder to ally with the latter in the 2017 Uttar Pradesh Assembly polls.
However, if one listens to the speeches of Congress leaders, it seems that the party’s focus is mainly on Rahul Gandhi, who is favoured by the ruling BJP but not by the other Opposition parties. Let’s not forget that the Bharat Jodo Yatra was less about Congress but was more about strengthening Rahul’s image as the main Opposition face. If Congress is serious about challenging the Modi-led BJP juggernaut next year, then it must regularly engage with the other Opposition parties, instead of taking their support granted. —INFA
