BJP’s asset Rahul Gandhi, is it Modi for Congress?

It is customary and a legal requirement for all candidates contesting elections to declare their assets. For a long time, in fact for a decade, the BJP has been using Rahul Gandhi as its biggest asset and giving him nicknames such as the Prince (Yuvaraj) of Congress. But with a decade of incumbency, the BJP is at the receiving end with the Congress paying back in the same coin. The grand old party’s spokesperson Pawan Khera said during a TV debate that Narendra Modi is their asset!

The Congress is happy with the innumerable public appearances of Modi blowing his own trumpet of the BJP government’s non-achievements. Khera said and remarked that the people are bound to get fed up with Modi’s theatrics. Realisation will soon dawn on the voters and the nation will see a big change, he said.

With this the media is bound to get plenty of content as the tu-tu-main-main is bound to get intensified. My worry is that the main issues before the nation jobs-prices-poverty will all get sidetracked. As it is, the BJP has been playing the Hindu card and using the Ram Mandir Pran Pratishtha to its advantage.

Modi on his part is religiously continuing (pun intended) his chants. Sample this: Commenting on India’s growing profile in the last 10 years, the Prime Minister underlined in Madhya Pradesh the direct benefits of investment and tourism. He noted recent strides in tourism in Madhya Pradesh and mentioned the growing number of devotees visiting Omkareshwar and Mahabaleshwar. He said the upcoming Ekatm Dham in Omkareshwar in the memory of Aadi Guru Shankaracharya and Ujjain Simhastha in 2028 was the catalyst of tourism growth. He said, “The construction of a 4-lane road from Ichhapur to Omkareshwar in Indore will provide further convenience to the devotees.

It rains multi-thousand-crore-rupee projects during elections. It is advantage BJP and under Modi’s leadership it’s just not a rain or a storm, it is a tsunami. He launched projects valued at over Rs 3,35,330 crore during February 2024 alone. The months of March and April will see more such announcements. Gujarat of course topped the investments even as the double-engine states bagged all the money. Only Tamil Nadu, with Modi’s increasing Southern thrust, bagged projects valued at over Rs 17,300 crores.

I do not see any harm in the Centre launching social welfare or infrastructure projects even before the elections, but I am certainly worried about the actual execution of all the projects being announced by the Prime Minister with politically motivated messages. It does not behove well for the Prime Minister to use government platforms to give election slogans and announce pre-election sops. Apart from merely throwing up statistics such as uplifting 14 crore people from poverty and distribution of free rations to 80 crore people, neither Modi nor his ministers speak of actual gains by the nation in terms of creating employment and improvement in per capita income and people’s spending capacity.

Meanwhile, Rahul Gandhi is changing rapidly. His messaging, his style of delivering it and the rising popularity have all made the ruling BJP think twice about Rahul. The Mo-Sha combine is obviously worried over his challenge. The growing support to Rahul’s Bharat Nyay Jodo Yatra is also the cause of the BJP’s worry. Otherwise, the BJP would not be trying so desperately to break the Congress wherever possible and include the leaders, even the spent force, in the ruling dispensation. The Godi media may not be covering Rahul's Yatra, but his outreach through youtubers and the Congress party’s own channel appear to be filling the void. BJP campaign machinery does not dismiss him as ignorable. The ruling network springs into holding press conferences, resorting to social media posts and trolling. The congress sees an opportunity in this as the BJP’s concerted efforts do give Rahul enough and more visibility. More on the changing media landscape, later.

Rahul has been harping on caste census following the successful project undertaken by Tejaswi Yadav when the latter was the Deputy CM in the then Nitish Kumar Government. The Congress vice president even made a daring statement in UP by saying the youth are sleeping as they do not realise that the ruling BJP has been hoodwinking them by avoiding the caste related census. The rich are getting richer and the poor poorer thanks to the BJP government’s policies that help a handful of capitalists.

He does not seem to be too off-the-mark. An Oxfam study last year said the “obscene and growing inequality also directly confronts modern India’s moral foundations: equality is a fundamental pillar of the modern Indian republic”. Oxfam India highlights that just 20 billionaires have the same wealth as 700 million Indians. Between 2012 and 2021, 40 percent of the wealth created went to just our top one percent. Today, just five per cent of Indians own more than 60 percent of the country's wealth, while the bottom 50 per cent of India’s population have only three per cent of wealth. Shockingly, according to Oxfam, the number of hungry Indians increased from 190 million in 2018 to 350 million in 2022.

This is what Rahul has been highlighting, of course in different words. Although Gandhi used to be an indifferent speaker, the long march with its endless rallies has lifted his oratory, reports The Guardian. His voice carries more conviction. He is more adept at working a crowd. Long dismissed as an irrelevant dilettante by the ruling Bharatiya Janata party of prime Minister Modi and scorned as an entitled dynast, Gandhi has proved on this march – and on his first march last year which took him from south to north – that he can handle the grind of grassroots politics and connect with ordinary Indians, The Guardian says.

Whether the Congress leader’s popularity converts into votes or not is a different question. But for now, the party appears to be rallying behind him and reaching seat sharing agreements in major States such as UP, MP, Maharashtra and Delhi.

For long, I have been discussing the perils of multi-cornered contests that lead to vote-split. Peril because the nation has been deprived of a strong opposition to keep the brute majority on a leash and maintain democratic checks and balances.

Getting back to the issues for the elections, Rahul has been playing the caste card and stating that 73 per cent of the people who are backward have not been getting justice. It does not require rocket science to realise that employment is the biggest issue today and the fever of religion cannot suppress it for too long.

The recent paper leak fiasco in UP clearly demonstrates the monstrous proportions of the socio-economic problem. For 60,422 posts of police constables in the State, as many as 43 lakh candidates – including over six lakhs from other States - have turned up at the 2,385 examination centres across 75 districts. So far so good. But the examination had to be cancelled following a question paper leak. A young man showed up at Rahul’s Bharat Nyay Jodo and narrated the horrible situation that the candidates faced. While Rahul naturally played up the issue, PM Modi who was in Varanasi around the same, chose to remain silent on this issue.

Yogi announced that the cancelled written examination will be held within six months, but the government must realise that many students would cross the age bar and be automatically disqualified which will add to the growing frustration. Such candidates must be given a grace to overcome the age bar issue as a one-time facility. The UP response shows that, on an average, more than 70 candidates applied for one post of police constable. And the government claims joblessness is falling.

As in all elections, voters are very sensitive to the issue of corruption. While the BJP has been thriving on the allegations against Manmohan Singh’s decade, the Congress has an opportunity to hit back at Modi’s decade. The Congress has successfully used the 40 per cent Corruption card in elections to the Karnataka legislative assembly.

I was happy to read the other day that technology has helped check leaks in the public distribution system in UP. Yogi said his government has been able to track down the supply of food grains from FCI warehouses to the last mile, the ration shop. Any official statement from a CM can be seen as truth until and unless it is challenged with counter facts. Yogi also said, Ramrajya is all about good governance, ensuring every citizen's access to welfare schemes without discrimination. It will be interesting to see how the INDIA bloc responds to this.

(The columnist is a Mumbai-based author and independent media veteran, running websites and a youtube channel known for his thought-provoking messaging.)