New Delhi: In a significant attempt to reshape his politics, Leader of Opposition Rahul Gandhi, responding to a growing debate within the Congress, has signalled the beginning of an image makeover exercise in an attempt to dispel the perception that he was “anti-business”.
The process was set in motion Wednesday with leading newspapers publishing an opinion piece by Gandhi in which he acknowledged that there was a gap in his approach in calling out business monopolies.
“I know that hundreds of India’s brilliant and dynamic business leaders are scared of the monopolists … in contrast to the ‘match-fixing’ monopoly groups, there is a larger number of amazing ‘play-fair’ Indian businesses, from micro-enterprises to large corporations, but you are silent. You persevere in an oppressive system,” Gandhi wrote.
A large section of the Congress felt that Gandhi’s frequent attempts to establish business enterprises owned by the Adani and Ambani business groups as benefactors of the Modi government’s largesse lacked nuance, resulting in the party alienating the aspirational youth and middle class who are not against wealth creation.
The impression that Gandhi was hostile to private businesses gained ground over the years. It all began with his 2008 visit to the bauxite-rich Niyamgiri Hills in Odisha, home to the Dongria and Manjhi Kondh tribals, during which he described proposed projects by the United Kingdom-based Vedanta Resources in the region as illegal.
Two years later, the environment ministry under the Congress-led UPA government rejected clearance to the USD 1.7 billion project.
Speaking to ThePrint Wednesday, Praveen Chakravarty, chairman of the All India Professionals’ Congress (AIPC), said Gandhi’s opinion piece was first in the series of many signals, initiatives and programmes being planned by the Congress in addressing the “politics of aspiration”.
Chakravarty, who is also chairman of the Congress’s data analytics department and has been involved in drafting the party’s election manifestos, acknowledged that there had been conversations “internally” on the need to convey with clarity that the party, or Gandhi, was not against business enterprises or generation of private wealth.
“I think what Rahul Gandhi has done so far is championing the politics of social justice. Now he is coming out and spelling out that he is also pro-business, which he has always been. That’s a key shift. He is responding to the politics of aspiration and underlining that he is not anti-wealth or anti-prosperity. Companies like Zomato and Lenskart which he mentioned in his piece, exemplify that politics of aspiration,” Chakravarty said.
In his piece, Gandhi stressed that political preferences of the founders of many newer homegrown companies may not align with his own, but they have “innovated and chosen to play by the rules” and “my politics will aim to provide you with what you have been denied — fairness and freedom to operate”.
“I draw my inspiration from (Mahatma) Gandhi ji’s words about defending the last voiceless person in the ‘line’. This conviction made me support MGNREGA, the Right to Food and the Land Acquisition Bill. I stood with the Adivasis in the famous confrontation of Niyamgiri. I backed our farmers in their struggle against the three black farm laws. I listened to the pain of the people of Manipur.
“But I realised I had missed the full depth of Gandhi ji’s words. I failed to pick up that ‘line’ is a metaphor—that, in fact, there are many different ‘lines’ in society. In the ‘line’ you stand in, that of business, it is you who are the exploited, the disadvantaged,” the Rae Bareli MP wrote.
To be sure, Gandhi has on a few occasions in the past too sought to underline that he was against monopoly, not corporations.
In October 2022, the Congress landed in a spot after industrialist Gautam Adani announced at the Invest Rajasthan summit, organised by the then Congress government led by Ashok Gehlot, that his business group would invest Rs 65,000 crore in the state over five to seven years.
A few days later, responding to a question on the issue, Gandhi had said, “Mr Adani gave a proposal of Rs 60,000 crores to Rajasthan. No CM would refuse such a proposal. Rajasthan CM didn’t give any preferential treatment to Adani or use his political power to help his (Gautam Adani’s) business.”
Also Read: Days after EC reprimand, Congress warns poll body of legal action, slams ‘condescending tone’