Events & Issues
New Delhi, 8 April 2023
Rahul’s Disqualification
CONG MUST’NT MISREAD OPP SUPPORT
By Sagarneel Sinha
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
(Copyright, India News & Feature
Alliance)
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