The BJP is fairly confident the Rafale allegations won’t stick, given Modi’s own credibility as well as questions about the validity of the Congress’s charges.
New Delhi: As the Congress attack on the Narendra Modi government over the contentious Rafale deal grows more shrill with each passing day, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has a calibrated strategy to deal with the onslaught.
Playing on the Prime Minister’s high personal credibility, it plans to go on the offensive against the Congress and its ‘corruption record’, as well as poking technical holes in the allegations.
Also read: Congress to launch nation-wide campaign on Rafale deal to ‘expose’ BJP
With assembly polls in four states just around the corner, and the Lok Sabha polls scheduled for the middle of next year, the Congress has clearly decided to make the Rafale deal and the alleged corruption around it a key plank to take on the BJP and Modi.
On Thursday, Congress president Rahul Gandhi, who has been posting frequent tweets on the issue, raised the pitch and held a press conference to allege alleged the PM was “lying”, claiming the deal was signed to help industrialist Anil Ambani.
He has also demanded a Joint Parliamentary Committee on the issue. Gandhi raised the Rafale deal even during his speech in Parliament during last month’s no-confidence motion against the government.
According to highly placed sources in the party, the BJP is “fairly confident the Rafale allegations won’t stick or have any resonance on the ground”, given Modi’s own credibility as well as questions about the validity of the Congress’s charges.
Sources further say if the Congress ups the ante further, the BJP would also go on the offensive, digging out the corruption scams from when the Congress was in power and questioning the Gandhi family’s role in them, particularly defence-related ones such as Bofors and AgustaWestland.
The manner in which the party would target Congress and how it structures the counter-offensive will depend on the extent to which the Congress drags the Rafale issue.
“We don’t think the allegations would stick at all because there is no constitutional or legal basis for the charges, no agency of government has said it at all, and credibility of the top leadership is very high,” said a top party leader on the condition of anonymity.
“Whether you look at Bofors or any such other big corruption scam, charges have been proven, people have gone to jail. In the case of Rafale, the Congress is merely stating its allegations but not initiating any legal step. Voters can see that.”
PM’s ‘teflon’ image
Even as PM Modi was in Nepal for the BIMSTEC Summit, the Congress held protests in New Delhi, running with the hashtag #PMHouseGherao. The youth wing of the Congress also started an online initiative calling for protests against what it calls the “Rafale Scam” and “Rafale Robbery”.
The BJP, however, believes PM Modi’s image as being “non-corrupt” as against the “Gandhis’ corrupt legacy” should be highlighted to make sure the message of what it wants to portray as baseless allegations is drilled well into the voter.
“We have to go big on talking about the PM’s teflon image with respect to corruption. For an ordinary voter — pro or anti-BJP, it is difficult to believe Modi is making money,” said another highly-placed source who did not wish to be identified.
“As a party, we are obviously irritated with these rants and understand the need to tackle them. But we also know Congress is making it big because it has no other issue so close to the polls.
“For us, the party leadership’s clean image is the trump card, something the Congress could never use given the Gandhi family’s history.
Also read: Modi govt will look guilty if it doesn’t divulge Rafale details: Ex-NSA Shiv Shankar Menon
“If you look back, Rahul Gandhi has been attempting to make the PM seem corrupt and an ally of crony capitalism earlier as well, especially questioning his motive to bring in demonetisation. He raised them continuously during the Gujarat and Karnataka assembly election campaigns. None of this, however, has had any impact.”
National security
To add to this, the party has been fielding finance minister Arun Jaitley to lead the charge on putting forth the technical arguments, and believes he should give “convincing reasoning and explanation” to the various questions Gandhi has posed.
Wednesday, Jaitley accused the Congress of “peddling untruth” on the Rafale deal. He claimed the “false campaign” was compromising national security.
By bringing in the issue of national security, the BJP is hoping to tap in to the other aspect of Modi’s credibility — the party believes besides the issue of corruption, voters also don’t question Modi’s intent on matters of national security.
“The BJP strategy is very clear. The whole country knows PM Modi has zero tolerance for corruption and that he does authentic work. Why would the common man believe Rahul Gandhi? Since 1952, his family has a history of corruption in defence deals. Jaitley ji, meanwhile, has already made the technical points,” said Anil Baluni, national head of the party’s media department as well as national spokesperson.