The Congress has been actively considering appointing Ashok Gehlot as working president and handing over Rajasthan to Sachin Pilot. Gehlot is not at all ready for this promotion. There is also a perception in the party that Sonia Gandhi would like to see son Rahul lead the party, officially. Amid this confusion and uncertainty, any significant change, good or bad, isn’t going to change the fortunes of the Congress party as much as a serious attempt to understand what the ruling BJP is up to.
The Congress is in the middle of a war, but it is defending itself with a naval arsenal while it is being fiercely attacked from air.
For eight years, Congress has been out of power, but it has not yet zeroed in on the BJP’s understanding of the party. Ask any senior Congress leader, what is the BJP’s understanding of contemporary politics including its grasp of the opposition’s universe? Their usual response will be rhetoric, irritation, and arrogant belief that BJP leaders and its supporters are communal, uneducated, and uncouth.
A serious study of tweets and statements of Congresspersons, including Rahul Gandhi, gives an insight into the freezing of their minds that doesn’t go beyond ‘blatantly communal and mediocre BJP’. This haughty approach doesn’t get them anywhere near the solution to the current issues faced inside and outside the party.
The lack of clarity in Congress is not just on whether Rahul Gandhi should be the president or a non-family person or should there be an internal election. The debilitating lack of clarity pervades everything: Should Rajasthan be handed over to Sachin Pilot, what the party is, what its makeover should look like, and what issues it should take up?
Also read: Not BJP, Socialists like Lohia cancelled Nehru first
The BJP defines Congress now
In the last decade, the BJP, under Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Home Minister Amit Shah, has been investing its energy in systematically highlighting that the Congress rule has been invariably corrupt, that the party breeds and survives on pariwarvad, and that the Sonia Gandhi-led Congress has adopted a policy of appeasement towards Muslims. Even though all parties, including the BJP, face issues of corruption and nepotism, the charges have stuck more on the Congress.
Sonia Gandhi had conceded in her 2018 Mumbai address that “the BJP has managed to convince people ‘we are a Muslim party’”. She added that the party had been “pushed into a corner” due to this branding by the BJP. If one views her admission from a different angle, it shows the Congress’s weight. The party has never been off-the-radar for the BJP. Simultaneously, the BJP has kept its stand strong on the integrity of the nation, terrorism and security issues.
The Congress’s glorious history, Gandhi-Nehru-Patel’s legacy, and brand recognition all over India are more than enough for it to survive long enough even when it’s down and out of power. The Aam Aadmi Party, which is considered a new challenger, doesn’t have any of these attributes, but it has been able to defeat the Congress in Punjab because people dislike confusion and uncertainty.
If—that’s a big if—there is ‘anti-vote’ by the people against the BJP at the national level, it would be advantage Congress by default. No other party is pitted in direct contest against the BJP in the Lok Sabha election on as many seats as the Congress. That’s why Amit Shah’s call to his party’s cadres of “Congress-mukt Bharat” wasn’t an impetuous strategy.
Congress’s top position, however weak, on the opposition side is well understood by the BJP.
When on 5 August, the party put up robust street protests on issues of price rise and unemployment, no other than Amit Shah issued a statement to downplay the Congress. He gave a politically mischievous twist to the protests, saying that Congress leaders chose to wear black as part of “appeasement” politics to convey its opposition to the Ram mandir foundation laying by PM Modi in Ayodhya on the same day in 2020. He said, “Congress ka asli dard shri Ram Mandir ka banana hai.” He kept it unsaid that it was also the day when Article 370 was diluted. The Congress was understandably irritated and gave a furious response but didn’t address Shah’s targeted audience. This was partly due to its hangover from the power that it held for many years and partly due to the vertical division within the top leadership on style and substance of politics that the party should engage in to take on the BJP and connect to people, which includes Modi voters.
As one astute observer of the party put it, “Congress ko Hindu banana hai ya nahi, vo party main kisiko pata nahi. (No one knows in the party if the Congress should embrace Hindu identity or not).” It’s dillydallying over its own identity.
Also read: Opposition on their knees but BJP has troubles brewing within
‘Hindu means BJP’
It’s crystal clear that the BJP’s entire focus is to see that the Congress doesn’t succeed in getting closer to the Hindutva plank that it is trying to claim the monopoly of. There are multiple dimensions, including negative ones, of the BJP’s politics, but the party’s sense of purpose carries on. It’s happening in a country where 80 per cent people are Hindus.
In the last decade, the BJP has put all its eggs in a Hindu basket. It has invested tremendously in acquiring the image of ‘sincere caretaker of Hindu India’. Now, it wants to secure its investment. ‘Congress ko Hindu nahin banne dena hai (Can’t let Congress own Hindu plank)’ is one of the policies of the BJP to deal with the Grand Old Party.
PM Modi’s startling success lies in making no mistake in identifying and embracing all the issues that conservative Hindu society strongly feels for. For consolidation of its support base, the BJP has worked hard to keep Congress on the edge by picking up issues such as the Batla House encounter and Rahul Gandhi’s JNU visit in support of agitating students whom the BJP labelled “tukde tukde gang.”
Modi’s development agenda, his diplomacy, and his weaving of a personality cult – nothing ever hurts the BJP’s Hindutva plank. The party wants to create an illusion to stick that “Hindu means BJP.”
Also read: Time to save Congress is now. Modi knows that, Gandhis don’t
The Congress conundrum
The BJP has been consistently and vigorously picking up issues to stop the Congress from becoming Indira Gandhi’s assertive party of the pre-Emergency era (1966-1974). She had monopoly over issues of “Bharat ki akhandta aur ekta” both. The BJP has not only appropriated Congressman Sardar Patel’s legacy, it has also put efforts to absorb tenets of Indira Gandhi’s statecraft too.
It’s not that the Congress doesn’t have the intellect to understand this game. But one of its fault lines lies in the division at the top. Rahul Gandhi, Mallikarjun Kharge, Siddaramaiah, K. Raju and many other loyalists are determined to take the Congress towards the pole opposite of the BJP. While Priyanka Gandhi, Ashok Gehlot, Randeep Surjewala, Digvijaya Singh and Bhupesh Baghel do see through the BJP’s gameplan.
At the Udaipur Chintan Shivir in May, Baghel did ask his collogues, “We celebrate Ram Navami and Diwali, too. Why should BJP hijack it?”
In 2019, the BJP won 303 seats, 37.4 per cent vote share – almost double Congress’ vote share. With 19.5 per cent vote share, the erosion of the Congress was steep. For Congress, these are bleak figures, but at the height of the Modi wave, around 55 per cent of votes were against the NDA. The BJP acts thoughtfully accepting this reality.
There are vast blocks of ‘secular-liberal’ class, various non-Hindu religious minorities, provincial non-Hindi class and traditional anti-RSS parivar votes to address, but the Congress is entangled in the agenda set by the BJP.
With yet another leader like Anand Sharma quitting his post, the Congress is far from redressing its shortcomings to take on the BJP before the 2024 polls. Beyond rhetoric, the top bigwigs need to understand BJP politics better, but that is nowhere in sight.
Sheela Bhatt is a Delhi-based senior journalist. Views are personal.