Gandhi
Family Fights For Survival After Striking A Deal!
Saeed
Naqvi
The Gandhi family is in this battle with
its back to the wall. A burst of energy at this late stage shows a sense of
purpose, and deep anxiety. They are fighting for their sheer survival.
There is a tragedy in the making – both
personal as well as national, on an epic scale. The grand old party has been declining
in every recent election, but this time the First Family runs the risk of
crashing. Some day, when the family takes stock, it will discover it has been
ill served by the small circle it surrounded itself with. The clique played
both side of the street.
It was always too clever by half because
people knew what was going on. Only, they were afraid to talk. And now that
power is slipping out of the family’s hands, tongues are wagging. A cover up is
on.
Priyanka Gandhi Vadra turns up in Rae
Bareli and makes a tear jerking speech about the family being “humiliated” by
the opposition. They were targeting her husband’s land deals she says. Like her
grandmother Indira Gandhi, she would fight back. She then unleashes her finest
invective on Narendra Modi’s “snoopgate”, how the Gujarat strongman had
allegedly organized surveillance of a woman architect across three states.
Surely Ms Vadra knows that barely three
days ago there was a front page cabinet announcement that matters of such
sensitivity will now be handled by the next cabinet. The deal has already been
struck, Ms Vadra. Now you can scream “snoopgate”, “Jashodaben”, “Ishrat Jehan”
for as many times as you like, but your party has already waved a white flag at
Modi for a price you ought to know. When the dust settles, the party may blame it
all on the family this time. Finally, the worm appears to be turning.
Is the Congress in a worse shape today
than it has been in the recent past? It is putting up a fight in, say, Punjab
where even mention of the Congress first family is a handicap. There are other
places where a fight is on but the family is not required. This, then, is the
emerging reality. The Gandhi family is increasingly at a discount.
The charisma of the Gandhis was always
exaggerated by insecure party leaders. Rajiv Gandhi had nearly three fourth
majority in Parliament in 1984, after his mother’s death. In 1989 he was
sitting in the opposition.
The party plummeted to 140 seats after
the Babri Masjid fiasco and never recovered on Sonia Gandhi’s watch. True, there
was no active hostility to the Gandhis as is on show now.
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has in
recent years looked increasingly like an inanimate object. The Sonia-Manmohan combination
began to look dull, bereft of ideas, uninspiring. The PM thinks his high point
was the civilian Nuclear Deal. The Prime Minister’s men ran around those days asking:
“why are the Muslims opposed to the deal.” Ofcourse they were not. They were
unhappy with the image of Manmohan Singh in George W Bush’s tight embrace at a
time when the global war on terror was being seen increasingly as a crusade
against the umma.
A deft leadership would have kept people
in the loop, explained the deal to them and then signed it. It should also have
had the courage to explain why the deal turned out to be a damp squib. This
kind of communication is not affected by two and a half journalists. This is a
task for an effective political party to undertake which, in this instance, was
absent.
The Indian ruling class has two
political parties which have the endorsement of big capital – the Congress and
the BJP. During UPA-II, the Indian establishment gradually defected to the BJP.
Retired members of the Armed Forces, the Civil Service made a beeline for that
party. When they were still in harness, they created conditions helpful to the
BJP. Home Secretary R.K. Singh hanged Afzal Guru without keeping the Home
Minister in the loop. He then proceeded to join the BJP. Is it not too late for
Sonia’s advisers to beat their breasts on that score? Why did they not tweak
Sushil Kumar Shinde’s ears then and there?
Even though the Congress is packing up
its bags, the BJP is not yet moving into the premises of power. There is a Modi
Tsunami declares Amit Shah, but does not pause to explain why Gopinath Munde,
Rajnath Singh, Murli Manohar Joshi and Arun Jaitley are not being able to leave
their constituencies even for a breather.
In the Congress ranks, there is
disarray. Tarun Gogoi and Janardhan Dwivedi scream “bring in Priyanka”. Rahul
loyalists, Shashi Tharoor and Jairam Ramesh shout back. “There is no vacancy at
the top for Priyanka.” On Thursday Priyanka was supposed to campaign in Amethi
but she did not. She flew back in her private plane even as party workers
speculated if the siblings were, well, okay with each other.
Sharad Pawar, Prithviraj Chavan and a
host of Congressmen are keeping a steady gaze on the regional parties.
UP is not yielding its mysteries. Which
way are its 18 percent Muslims dividing or combining? The Brahmin, whose
influence is greater than his numbers, has not indicated whether he will vote
for Rajnath Singh in Lucknow. In UP, Brahmins and Thakurs, have historically
not combined well.
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