Congress faces uphill task of anchoring INDIA

Radhika Ramaseshan

Senior Journalist

IN the run-up to the Lok Sabha elections, the BJP is up and about, dominating the political rhetoric and narrative, crafting winning strategies and even cementing improbable alliances in circumstances defying rhyme and reason. The pre-poll preparations going on in the BJP-led NDA are all the more remarkable because a perception has gained currency with the classes and the masses that the high-decibel celebrations of the Ram Temple’s sanctification ought alone to deliver a win for the ruling coalition, at least in the north and the west. According to BJP insiders, PM Narendra Modi is leaving nothing to the vagaries of electoral politics because he apparently wants to best the Congress’ all-time record of winning 404 seats in the 1984 General Election (it had bagged another 10 in the deferred elections held in 1985).

What is the state of the Opposition or a significant section clubbed together under the INDIA umbrella? This coalition of disparate forces, representing the Congress and some regional parties, began with a smidgen of promise because it thought of itself as a simulacrum of past alliances (though these were post-poll formations). But it became a non-starter as the mutual contradictions of the constituents began to surface publicly, and it petered out into irrelevance as a key player, the Janata Dal (United) — regarded as the bedrock of the assemblage of regional parties — walked out and embraced its former adversary, the BJP. It was a coup engineered by the BJP’s top brass. Notably, JD(U) leader Harivansh Narayan Singh continued as the Deputy Chairman of the Rajya Sabha even after his party broke ties with the BJP in 2022. The Chief Minister, Nitish Kumar, was loath to conclusively sever ties with the BJP. He kept open a window for future rapprochement.

The JD(U)’s desertion made the RJD and the Congress lose power in Bihar (which has 40 Lok Sabha seats) and tossed out of the window the game plan to counter political Hindutva with caste empowerment, articulated through the insistent demand for a caste census to get an authentic count of the Other Backward Classes (OBC), Dalits and Adivasis in the hope that the exercise would show the upper castes as a minuscule minority even in the north.

The clamour for a caste census failed to work in December’s Assembly polls in the Hindi heartland states of Rajasthan, Chhattisgarh and Madhya Pradesh, despite Congress leader Rahul Gandhi’s belated adoption of the Mandal plank and its wider resonances for the under-and-disempowered castes. The BJP had long beaten the Congress and the socialists at this game.

What remains of INDIA now? The existing regional parties dictate their terms of engagement with the Congress, which once hoped to spearhead the alliance. The Trinamool Congress has stated that it would go it alone in West Bengal, without the Congress and the Left Front. In Tamil Nadu, CM MK Stalin is the big dad; he is the only leader in INDIA who was unapologetic about challenging the BJP on faith-related issues, knowing it might not disturb his following.

In Maharashtra, Sharad Pawar (Nationalist Congress Party) and Uddhav Thackeray (Shiv Sena, UBT) seem to be on the same page as their ally, the Congress, struggles to get its act together. In Uttar Pradesh, the situation remains fluid, compounded by the Samajwadi Party’s refusal to grant the Congress fewer than a dozen of the 80 Parliamentary seats. Likewise, the Aam Aadmi Party has been at daggers drawn with the Congress in Punjab, Haryana and Delhi. Punjab, Haryana and Himachal Pradesh are the only northern states where the Congress can aspire to do reasonably well, provided it gets the required space.

The regional parties have a dilemma. Never completely ideology-driven, they have to prove themselves on the limited turfs they control: Mamata Banerjee in West Bengal, Arvind Kejriwal in Delhi and Punjab, Akhilesh Yadav and Jayant Singh in UP, Lalu Yadav and Tejashwi Yadav in Bihar, and so on. Barring Punjab and Haryana, the rest are states where the Congress was edged out long ago. Yet the party harbours ambitions disproportionate to its ground strength on the premise that it remains the only pan-India force against the BJP behemoth.

What else explains Rahul Gandhi’s compulsion to embark on the second edition of his Bharat Jodo Yatra, hoping to legitimise his leadership and give the Congress the traction it requires after the electoral debacle? It appears as though the Gandhi scion willingly frittered away the limited headway INDIA had made after its inception by not reaching out to the JD(U) or mollifying Nitish’s feelings about being given the cold shoulder by the Congress. According to reports, the Gandhis only gave an ear to Lalu Yadav, which Nitish saw as an affront to his status as INDIA’s co-founder and coalition-builder.

Was Rahul ignorant of the undercurrent of another massive mobilisation for the BJP in the aftermath of the sweep in north India, the Ayodhya spectacle, the potential Hindu polarisation and, very importantly, the conferment of the Bharat Ratna on former Bihar CM Karpoori Thakur, a pioneering champion of OBC empowerment in the heartland? The honour was cited as the reason for Nitish’s ‘ghar wapsi’ in the NDA.

As the INDIA chairperson, Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge has reached out to the allies at crunch time. The trouble is that he is perceived to be a retainer of the Gandhis, who continue to be the ultimate arbiters of how the Congress would want to mould the Opposition and fashion its equations with its regional partners.

For Mamata, Kejriwal and the other leaders, Rahul’s status as the INDIA leader is unacceptable. Justifiably or unjustifiably, they consider themselves the Congress’ equals, and unless the foundation of a balanced equation is laid out, the experiment is doomed to fail.

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