“Can’t give a count how many times I met Rahul Gandhi,” was the refrain of Kanhaiya Kumar in a private chat with AICC-beat journos a day after he joined the party Wednesday last calling for the need for Bhagat Singh’s courage, Mahatma Gandhi’s unity and BR Ambedkar’s quest for equality in the ideological positioning against RSS-BJP.
Well, there are unmistakable signs that Team Rahul is a shaping; but the slow and silent emergence of a new Congress is going to be tumultuous bringing forth the “old versus the new generation” fight, which had taken a backseat for some years after the massive electoral debacle of the party in the 2014 general elections.
With Kanhaiya, who became rallying point for Opposition in 2016 after the sedition case against him, the other young leader Jignesh Mevani, a prominent Dalit face from Gujarat, also shared dais with Congress leaders, promising to fight the 2022 state polls as party candidate. Congress is a marginal force in Bihar – Kanhaiya’s home state; and the party has not been able to defeat BJP in Gujarat for nearly 25 years. Can the new youth leaders help Congress’ fortunes change?
“Congress is the main Opposition party. Party leader Rahul Gandhi has been strongly taking on RSS. Whoever has the target to defeat the BJP should join hands with Congress under Rahul Gandhi. Strengthening the hands of the Congress is a must now to save democracy,” Kanhaiya, who contested Lok Sabha polls from Bihar as CPI candidate in 2019, has been maintaining. This is a narrative that suits Congress when multiple prime ministerial ambitions appear, raising head from regional parties. The whole-hearted welcome and the celebratory mood that marked the joining of these leaders with a pronounced left tilt (Kanhaiya was with CPI), indicated the party led by Rahul Gandhi (though he is not the President) has shed the inhibition about going for a strident anti Hindutva (not Hinduism). Congress flags the difference between the two, calling Hindutva, a political distortion by BJP and RSS narrative.
The comeback of Digvijay Singh, who had asked Rahul to take over “full time” charge, into a prominent role this month has not gone unnoticed. Singh was made chairman of a party panel with Priyanka Gandhi as a member to plan “sustained agitations on national issues”. Singh has once again begun speaking openly on party issues, after refraining from it for quite some time especially during polls, as it was believed that his remarks often get interpreted as anti-Hindu.
Rahul Gandhi’s all-out attack last month on RSS-BJP, alleging that they are “fake Hindus” who “use religion” to further their political interest, which drew sharp reactions from the BJP, has also given an inkling of the future course of the party narrative and leaders like Kanhaiya and Jignesh, known for their strident anti-RSS stand, will take it forward.
Many in the Congress, especially among the old guard, are not open to this left-of-the-centre tilt of Congress under Rahul, who had time and again showed this trait-whether it was backing the tribals’ protest in Niyamgiri hills in Odisha against the setting up of bauxite mining plant of Vedanta in 2010 or his visit to JNU in 2016, slamming as “anti-national” those suppressing the voice of the campus.
Hours before Kanhaiya joined Congress, former Union Minister Manish Tewari, a prominent face of G-23, the group of Congress leaders which has kept the heat on the leadership, insisting on the need for radical changes in the party, tweeted saying it would be worthwhile to look at the history of the Communists’ presence in the party.
Some in Congress feel that a direct confrontational approach with RSS, which has a vast “karyakarta base” and which is “directly not in politics” is not pragmatic and the Congress should instead focus on targeting to oust BJP from political power by raising other issues like economic mess, loss of employment and farm distress. However, many even within the G-23 are trenchant critics of the RSS; approaches differ from individual to individual in both camps.
Mark the words of Rahul Gandhi in July this year: “there are many people who are not in Congress, but are very fearless in speaking the truth. Such people should be inducted into the party while those who are in the party but are scared to speak the truth should go away.”
Congress has also shown in recent times that it is not averse to lateral entry from the BJP to shore up its talent pool in states and is not minding out of turn promotions to youngsters and effecting leadership changes in the state, keeping in mind future politics.
So not only Navjot Singh Sidhu, an import from BJP (57) for whom Rahul Gandhi was “his captain”, was made Punjab PCC chief, Revanth Reddy (53) with previous association with TDP, TRS and ABVP was made Telangana Congress chief just three years after having joined the party. Nana Patole (58) moved from Congress to BJP and then back to Congress. In Assam, Bhupen Kumar, a strong critic of Congress’ alliance with AIUDF, was made party chief as the party plans to rebuild itself in the Opposition for next five years. Old leadership in Kerala went for a complete toss and new PCC chief and CLP leaders were appointed in the state from where Rahul Gandhi is a Lok Sabha MP.
Dalit CM
Punjab got its first Dalit Chief Minister in Charanjit Singh Channi, who lost no time in hailing Rahul Gandhi as “revolutionary leader”. Team Rahul is hopeful that the echo of Channi’s appointment will be heard way beyond Punjab even in Uttar Pradesh, where Dalits are politically more assertive and have drifted away from Congress to BSP long ago.
The joining of Kanhaiya Kumar and Jignesh Mevani need to be seen in sync with Rahuls’ attempt to deepen not only the Dalit but also youth messaging from the party--the constituencies in which BJP under Modi has managed to make deep inroads since 2014. Rahul who started his politics in Congress as in-charge of Youth Congress and NSUI, is keen to get that space back, latching on to the issue of unemployment. Kanhaiya with sound oratory skills, belongs to the dominant upper caste group Bhumihar in Bihar, who are now largely with the BJP.
Clearly, Rahul is seeking to re-orient the political narrative of the party, which had gone into a shell after the 2014 historically low tally of 44 Lok Sabha seats for the party and A K Antony Committee set up to probe the reasons for the debacle, laying substantial emphasis on “perception of being pro Muslim” fuelled by the BJP had hurt the party. In 2017 itself in the run up to Gujarat state polls, Congress said Rahul Gandhi was a ‘janeudhaari Brahmin” and an ardent “Shiv Bhakt”.
The new focus in the Congress is not to get into traps like “Hindu terror” (a remark made by then Home Minister Sushil Kumar Shinde in January 2013 latching on to which BJP had tried to paint Congress anti-Hindu and Shinde had to tender an apology) but at the same time ensure that the BJP does not monopolise the Hindu space.
Having done the course correction on correcting the accusation that “Congress was not bothered about Hindu sentiments”, the party gradually got back into aggression against RSS and BJP, seeking to deny them the ownership of Hindu Hriday even as the BJP kept on raising issues to paint Rahul as “pro-Pakistan”.
With Sonia Gandhi reluctant to continue at the helm for long and the party not being able to name an alternative to the Gandhis in the leadership, indications are Rahul will be back. If Rahul is back, his political narrative will be back irrespective of whether the veterans accept it or not.
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