Priyanka Preparing UP For 2022, Rahul The Congress For 2024
Saeed Naqvi
It is true that there are no permanent enemies or permanent
friends in politics. But this Machiavellian law is clearly not applicable when
a coalition of parties is in the midst of an existential battle. No one can
grudge the Congress party’s desire to revive, but fighting the main enemy, in
this case the BJP, and at the same time firing lethal rounds at allies has
created bad blood among coalition partners.
Mayawati, Akhilesh Yadav and Ajit Singh (BSP, SP, RLD) have
spoken out in unison: “there is no difference between the Congress and the
BJP.” The other day “Gathbandhan” was in a huddle, counting the number of seats
where the Congress has entered the fray “as a spoiler”. In Saharanpur, Kheri,
Badaun, Sant Kabir Nagar, Sitapur, Bijnor and so on – the Congress is helping
not the “gathbandhan” but the BJP.
Why is the Congress in this mode of double containment? One does
not have to look far for hints and guesses: Priyanka Gandhi has, in so many
words, clarified her party’s intention. “We are preparing the ground for 2022”
– the Assembly elections. In other words, for the Nehru-Gandhi parivar, the
2019 Lok Sabha elections are not a matter of life and death. Will Narendra Modi
return signal the end of democracy, usher in Fascism and worse? The Congress is
not taken in by such alarmist nonsense.
The Congress has not been able to properly market some of its
smart, double edged moves. Fielding Rahul from Wayanad in Kerala has been
criticized for the obvious reason: that Wayanad is a seat from where the
Congress always wins. The unnecessary insertion of the Congress President in
the battle has signaled the party’s antipathy towards the Left with which it
had been in conversation for some co-ordination in West Bengal. The Wayanad
episode came on the heels of the West Bengal arrangement being spurned by the
Congress. The coincidence amplified Congress ambivalence, its inability to
decide whether it should strengthen the opposition or weaken regional forces.
It probably feels that it looks relatively more muscular for future” battles by
undoing its own allies. What the Congress has not marketed is this: Rahul from
Wayanad may block Congress candidates fleeing towards the BJP which is aching
to open its account in Kerala.
Also the intellectual pool around the Congress President appears
to have been influenced by the pro Modi media which has projected 2019 as a
Presidential contest. This is not new. During the 2014 elections, Arnab
Goswami, as the oracle and arbiter of national destiny, was on the same
trajectory. He attempted to lure Rahul into his parlour for a Modi-Rahul
debate. It did not work out because Rahul was dreaming dreams of building the
party brick by brick, village Panchayat upwards, a high pyramid with a wide
base.
In fact Rahul had brought in a former election Commissioner K.J.
Rao to organize a system of primaries for election to the Youth Congress and
National Students Union of India. He sought expert help to select 16 untainted
Lok Sabha candidates as a sort of pilot project. At this speed, one wondered,
how long will it take Rahul to identify 543 Lok Sabha candidates?
On the pain of digressing a bit, there is a detail of
considerable political import I would like to insert here.
What is the reason that the 2004 to 2009 was possibly the
cleaner innings that Manmohan Singh played? One reason is that he had outside
support of 60 Left Front members who enabled the Congress to keep the riff raff
at bay. True they had ideological objections to the nuclear deal with the US,
but corruption was nowhere in the vicinity of that arrangement. Fierce Right Wing
pressure resulted in the Left’s departure.
The replacement of the Left by greedy interests, opened the
floodgates of corruption on a scale that Modi, backed by the world’s most
expensive campaign, harnessed to his dramatic advantage. Very few in the Congress
remember: after the party turned its back on the Left, it came down to its
lowest ever tally – 44 seats.
I have already dwelt on Rahul’s diffidence on the eve of 2014
elections, when his party had its best score in two decades – 209 seats. And now
with merely 44 under his belt is it realistic to expect him to bust his guts
for the ultimate trophy?
Not surprising, therefore, that in the space of a month both
Rahul and Priyanka have publicly backtracked. They have both said separately
that they are preparing the ground, particularly in UP, for 2022. Party men are
thinking of 2024 Lok Sabha elections. In striking this posture, they miss the
basic point. Election 2019 was supposed to focus on bringing down the BJP. The
front page photographs on May 23, 2018 in Bengaluru and January 19, 2019 in
Kolkata of the Mahagathbandhan represented a United Front against the BJP. Once
this mission was accomplished, the coalition would get into a huddle to select
the leader of the House.
Had Congress played the game in good faith, the leadership
selection phase would have been relatively smooth. Numbers would have
influenced the outcome. Btu the manner in which candidates have been fielded by
the Congress, particularly against Mayawati, ensures a messy endgame.
If the results are more or less even, this would, for the BJP be
an excellent election to lose. The Ram Temple remains unbuilt. Kashmir and the
Pakistan cauldrons are bubbling over. On each one of these issues, the B team
of the BJP namely the Congress will simply wilt. Pakistan Prime Minister Imran
Khan was succinct: chances of an Indo-Pak dialogue are more likely in the event
of Modi winning, because a weak opposition government would be too much in a
state of funk to go against the current of anti Pak nationalism.
Much of this is highly speculative. Should the BJP numbers fall
just enough to qualify it for the largest single party status, Naveen Patnaik,
K. Chandrashekar Rao, Jaganmohan Reddy in Odisha, Telengana and Andhra Pradesh
will be inclined to leap from their fence but only on their terms which will
most certainly include a change of leadership in the BJP.
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