Amit Shah returns to centre stage for the BJP, so does Rahul Gandhi for the Congress

COVID-19 has seen a big bang re-emergence of two arch-rivals, Rahul Gandhi and Amit Shah, both former presidents of their respective parties, Congress and BJP, and both of whom had a subdued public presence for some time.

Shah had a flamboyant start as Home Minister in Modi 2.0 since May last year, with massive decisions like the passage of triple talaq bill in July 2019, which entitled a divorced Muslim woman to seek subsistence allowance from her husband; the abrogation of the special status of Jammu and Kashmir and its division into three UTs in August 2019 with the removal of Article 370 and Article 35A; and the passing of the Citizenship Amendment Act to grant citizenship to non-Muslim minorities from Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan in December 2019.

The CAA, however, kicked off nationwide protests, with students lending support to it in many cities, which the government could not contain effectively, somewhat roiling and soiling Shah’s performance slate. As the dark icing on the already spoilt cake came in end-February, National Security Adviser Aji Doval had to be brought into action to manage the situation during the Delhi riots.

Though Shah later said it was he himself who had sent Doval on the mission, the impression gathered was that Shah, who had led an incendiary campaign during Delhi polls, could no longer control what he had set off. Suddenly, any mention of CAA and NRC went missing from Shah’s speeches in March, and by April, he was even out of the public glare.

Even as it was the Home Ministry, which was primarily concerned with implementing the COVID-19 lockdown, it was Prime Minister Narendra Modi who was the face of the government, addressing the nation multiple times and holding consultations with the chief ministers. It was after more than two months after the lockdown was announced that Shah had a virtual meeting with chief ministers on May 28 to discuss their views on extending or relaxing the lockdown.

With the COVID-19 strategy now becoming a tool of competitive politics and the Opposition repeatedly questioning the government on it, Shah’s political skills were once again needed for the party, which faces two elections within one year (Bihar in October 2020 and West Bengal in May 2021). The former BJP chief is back in action to counter the Opposition. It is he who launched the BJP attack on Bengal CM Mamata Banerjee over the state’s response to COVID-19 and accused her of putting up impediments to the smooth movement of migrants back home to the state.

Shah addressed virtual rallies in Bihar on June 7, Odisha on June 8 and Bengal on June 9, tearing into the Opposition
for blaming the Centre for the migrant crisis. In a return to a familiar Modi-Shah line, he asked what the non-BJP parties that ruled the nation for 70 years had done for Eastern Indian states, from where come the most migrant workers. BJP believes Shah has been able to change the narrative back in BJP’s favour. Clearly, Shah is back in command in the BJP as Modi’s No. 2.

Similarly, the pandemic period has also seen the rise in the stock of Rahul Gandhi within Congress. After having quit as party president after the 2019 Lok Sabha poll debacle, Rahul was maintaining a low profile, repeatedly shunning requests from party leaders to return as party chief.

In fact, from the very beginning of the COVID-19 crisis, Rahul has been aggressively trying to put the central government on the mat, questioning its strategy to contain the pandemic, questioning the timing of its actions and the logic of its decisions.

As early as on February 12, more than a month before the lockdown was imposed suddenly, Rahul had urged the Centre to put in place measures to combat the imminent pandemic. On April 16, he raised the issue of millions of migrants on the roads across the country, drawing the BJP’s ire.

Later, the party and its youth wing sought to reinforce Rahul Gandhi’s 2019 Lok Sabha poll promise of NYAY – a minimum income guarantee scheme -- by demanding that the Centre implement it for at least six months for the poor and migrant workers who were battling a crisis of life and livelihood.

He was ably assisted by his mother Sonia Gandhi and sister Priyanka Gandhi. While Sonia was quick to seize the opportunity over the migrant workers’ anger, announcing that her party would pay the train fares for all migrants, Priyanka made a politically potent move of arranging 1,000 buses to ferry migrants stuck in BJP-ruled Uttar Pradesh where she is nurturing the party for the 2022 Assembly polls.

However, it was Rahul who remained the face of the Congress against the government on COVID-19, holding interactions with a number of eminent thinkers on social and economic issues, including
the likes of Raghuram Rajan, Abhijeet Banerjee and Thomas Piketty, all of whom batted for an economic package and relief for the poor at a time when the Modi government did not seem to care about either issue. Rahul also held discussions with globally renowned public health experts Professor Ashish Jha of Harvard Global Health Institute and Swedish epidemiologist Johan Gieseckein in the last week of May and with industrialist Rajiv Bajaj on June 4.

When the government tweaked its COVID-19 strategy in the third week of May, deciding to involve the states in a bigger way, Congress pointed out that Rahul Gandhi had been saying since May 8 that the COVID-19 strategy had to be decentralised and left to chief ministers, district magistrates and collectors to take decisions.

The build-up for Rahul within the party is happening amid a strong buzz that he will stage a comeback with a very prominent role in party affairs during the AICC plenary slated for the end of the year as Sonia has made it clear she will not continue as party president for long and there is no question of Priyanka taking Rahul’s place either.