Politics around Rahul’s H-bomb & call to Gen Z

For the better part of the past week, Rahul Gandhi was at the centre of political discussions. First for his Thursday press conference in the Capital where he claimed mass deletion of votes in Karnataka’s booths, where the Opposition party had a dominant presence. Then for the X post saying the Gen Z will stop vote theft and save the Constitution. Then again for his Saturday claim that the “hydrogen bomb of proof he has will reveal the reality that Prime Minister Narendra Modi stole votes and came to power”.

All three takes of Gandhi had the BJP response teams in an overdrive. The first leader the saffron party fielded to take on Gandhi for his “vote deletion charges” was five-time Hamirpur MP and former minister Anurag Thakur, who asked why the Congress leader was questioning voter bases in a Karnataka constituency (Aland) his own party colleague BR Paatil had won in 2023. “Was the segment won with vote-chori?” asked Thakur, accusing the Lok Sabha Leader of Opposition of attempting to foment a Kathmandu, Dhaka and Sri Lanka like crisis in India.

Gandhi’s X post that ‘Indian youth, students, Gen Z will stop vote theft and save the Constitution’ invited even sharper reactions from the BJP, which asked if the Congress MP from Amethi was giving the youth a call to arms and what he intended to achieve with such signalling.

While the Congress was planning to amplify Gandhi’s ‘Gen Z’ comments, the party-backed National Students Union of India lost two key campus elections last week which the Sangh Parivar-linked Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad swept — Delhi University Students’ Union and Hyderabad University Students’ Union polls.

Top guns of the BJP, from party chief JP Nadda to Union Home Minister Amit Shah, termed these wins as reflective of Indian youth’s ‘commitment to nation first ideology’. Their swipe was at Rahul Gandhi as the NSUI lost ground in the Congress-ruled Telangana and Delhi where it had last year bagged the DUSU president’s post after a hiatus of seven years.

Over the last year alone, the ABVP has won student body elections in Patna University, Panjab University, Chandigarh; Delhi University, Guwahati University, Manipur University and now Hyderabad Central University.

On the other hand, the NSUI whose AICC in- charge is Kanhaiya Kumar, the former firebrand president of the JNU Students’ Union, has been battling a shrinking campus presence.

This is not a wider reflection of the youth’s sentiment, argued a Congress leader who supports Rahul Gandhi’s ‘vote chor gaddi chhod’ campaign targetted at Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

Sections in the INDIA bloc, however, have doubts over the electoral utility of targetting the Election Commission and its Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of the electoral rolls in Bihar and then elsewhere. Their belief is this may not translate into votes. This, said a senior Opposition leader, explains why RJD’s Tejashwi Yadav has had to undertake Bihar Adhikar Yatra to challenge Chief Minister Nitish Kumar’s record on law and order and unemployment — real issues in Bihar. This after he had participated in Rahul Gandhi’s Vote Adhikar Yatra against SIR.

“We need issues that resonate with the people. We have to flag their day-to-day concerns,” an INDIA bloc leader said when asked if the anti SIR movement was an adequate campaign plank.

The BJP for its part has done the math in Bihar and elsewhere, and believes the Congress ongoing vote chori plan will suit the NDA in the long run.

That explains why BJP leaders are framing Gandhi’s messaging as “pro-infiltrator”.

“For us it is good as long as Rahul Gandhi raises the SIR issue. SIR is not an emotive issue nor does it appeal to the man on the ground. The more the Opposition speaks of alleged vote theft, the more masses will disconnect from them because we are arguing against illegal immigrants getting the sacred right to vote meant for Indian citizens,” a senior BJP leader said, revealing the conscious saffron strategy of persisting with attacks on Gandhi for his vote theft allegations.

In the Congress meanwhile, many appear convinced that Gandhi is a changed man after Bharat Jodo Yatra and knows what he is doing. They believe the SIR issue will hold the party in good stead in Bihar elections and later in West Bengal, Tamil Nadu, Kerala and Assam next year.

But deep down, these same leaders also hope the SIR campaign does not meet the same fate as anti-Rafale, anti-Pegasus, Chowkidar Chor Hai and anti-EVM campaigns.

The challenge, they say, is not to find alternative political narratives but to take those to a logical conclusion.