Who will be I.N.D.I.A.’s mascot?

The wheels of fortune forever turn. It favours the brave, those who rise each time they fall. The stay on the conviction of Rahul Gandhi in the ‘Modi surname’ defamation case and restoration of his status as a member of parliament, must have come as a shot in the arm for him, the Congress party and the I.N.D.I.A. coalition.

It was a timely reprieve. It enabled him to participate in the ‘no confidence motion’ against the Narendra Modi government. There was anticipation in the air – not of the government’s fall, but of what the seemingly irrepressible Rahul Gandhi, fielded as the star speaker of I.N.D.I.A. and who has been a relentless and fearless critic of Modi, would say. 

Rahul spoke for 40 minutes, starting by recounting his experiences of his 4,000-km Bharat Jodo Yatra from Kanyakumari to Kashmir. He said he started out ‘arrogantly’ but lost that arrogance as he walked, listened to, and mingled with, the ordinary, everyday India. He heard the voice of India. 

One initially wondered what Rahul was getting at. Then it dawned. He heard the heart-rending voices of the women and men of Manipur, caught in a hellish web of ethnic clashes between two communities, murder, arson and rape. He went to Manipur to meet and hear first-hand those voices of the victims and the bereaved. He implied, adroitly, that the Prime Minister seemed deaf to those voices of Manipur because he was arrogant. He had ears only for two people -- Adani and Amit Shah. He had not visited Manipur even after three months of violence there.

Rahul said, “If clear instructions were given by the PM to the Indian Army, it could halt the violence in two days. Why were those orders not given?” Then, he thundered: “The BJP has murdered my Bharatmata in Manipur…The BJP is sprinkling kerosene everywhere and setting the country on fire.” Those were strong, blistering words.

Prime Minister Modi spoke for nearly two-and-a-half hours. In the first 90-odd minutes, he did not even mention Manipur, choosing rather to mock and ridicule the Opposition. He did speak about Manipur, but only after the frustrated Opposition had walked out, and even then only very briefly. He blamed the Opposition for not agreeing to a debate on Manipur on Home Minister Amit Shah’s terms; and he took the opportunity to do what he usually does: blame the Congress and Nehru and Indira Gandhi for all the ills of the country and of the North-East states. Indulging in his penchant for word play, he called the INDIA bloc ‘ghamandia’ (arrogant) alliance. He went round and round, dazzled, deflected and parried, but never answered the question why he had not visited Manipur so far in its hour of suffering. That was inimitable Modi. 

His Independence Day speech was more of the same. Long on his accomplishments, often conflating himself with India, and short on the healing touch, in assuaging the fears of the minority communities at a time when targeted violence against them by vigilante mobs and State institutions has become the norm as we saw in Nuh, Haryana.

For many of his rising number of followers, this was a resurgent Rahul taking on Modi. And for Modi’s bhakts, their messiah had delivered a knock-out punch to Rahul. The question looms, are the 2024 elections set to become a contest between Modi and Rahul? Is this a watershed moment of a battle between two ideas of India? 

In July, for the first time since Modi became PM, the leaders of 26 disparate opposition parties came together in Bengaluru. Doughty old warhorses, young dynasts, sitting and former chief ministers, all gathered to brainstorm how to outwit and defeat Modi in 2024. 

The same day, the BJP called a meeting of 38 assorted political parties in Delhi, to revive the National Democratic Alliance (NDA). In the aftermath of the Karnataka elections and the complete exit of the BJP from the South, and given the BJP’s absence in many states, the NDA move was seen to have betrayed the BJP’s fear of going it alone in 2024. 

But is just being anti-Modi enough to sway the masses to vote for the Opposition? Everyone knows what the BJP stands for – it wants a Hindu Rashtra. Do the leaders of INDIA have a common overarching vision of India? Will they, given the many inflated egos involved, stick together even if they come to power? Who among them can lead and keep the fractious coalition together?

None of the parties and leaders who banded together in Bengaluru has a pan-India presence or appeal, including the redoubtable Sharad Pawar who has just received a body blow from his nephew Ajit Pawar who split the
NCP and joined the BJP-Eknath Shinde government. 

That leaves INDIA with Rahul Gandhi and Congress to lead. Both names resonate across the country. Rahul is endearing, brimming with irrepressible energy and enthusiasm. He has an impish charm and a sincerity that draws crowds wherever he goes. He has, of late, captured the imagination of the common people as an empathetic politician. The BJP’s charges of him being a dynast and a dilettante no longer seem to stick. He has risen from the ashes like the Phoenix and has galvanised his party, and millions of fence-sitters among voters, through the Bharat Jodo Yatra. Congress’ Karnataka win was partially attributed to the BJY. Clearly, Rahul comes across as a more matured and measured politician post-BJY. 

If Rahul is chosen as the face of the coalition to lead it in the run-up to the 2024 elections, will he measure up to the Modi challenge? In a contest between Modi and Rahul -- an ageing monarch, who has no wish to pause, who has a cult following and who still has fire in his belly and hunger for power, versus a young and intrepid prince who now delights in battle -- does Rahul have it in him to lead the coalition to power?

Prudently, Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge announced at the Bengaluru conclave that Congress is not staking a claim to the Prime Minister’s Office and staved off an ego clash at the outset. That should likely hold the leaders together till the general elections to agree on their strategies and tactics to stop the Modi juggernaut in its tracks. 

There may be headwinds of incumbency against the BJP, but is a mere clever acronym INDIA (Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance) enough to ensure victory? They need one leader, a mascot to fire the imagination of the public to lead them into elections. Will Rahul be that leader? 

(The writer is a soldier, farmer and entrepreneur)