by Rajesh Kumar Sinha 19 December 2020
The noted Indian historian Ramchandra Guha, has recently suggested that the Nehru-Gandhi family members must leave the Indian National Congress (INC) party leadership. Other competent and experienced leaders from various corners of the country who are therein for a long time, should get into the leadership position, and then only the grand old party of India could think of offering a real political fightback to Narendra Modi-led BJP.
In a candid interview, he spoke extensively of how the three members of the Nehru dynasty are weakening the INC from within. He also talked of how they are not allowing the other party leaders to grow up and rise to a position of strength inside the party. Subsequently, the party remains under the control of the family and is unable to provide the Indian electorate with a credible opposition to vote for.
Guha’s words are not to be taken with a closed mind. He has no love lost for Modi, the Indian PM. And he has been one of the fiercest critics of Modi and his BJP government. In fact, many of his diatribes against Narendra Modi could well be regarded as subjective. However, this is the first time that he has spoken so explicitly against the first family of the Congress party. In a no-holds-barred, he has virtually suggested the brother-sister duo of Rahul and Priyanka should simply get out of the way and let the INC come up with a real, credible leader from within the party.
However, in spite of tremendous disorientation and resentment amongst the top echelons of the INC, the party spokesperson continues to dish out the most incredible political lies. Statements like Rahul Gandhi is the undisputed choice of 99.99% of Congressmen, cannot be anything but a tangible, shameful distortion of reality.
Not very long ago till 2014, BJP was a party that was always treated as a pariah by most political parties. Even within the electorate, its appeal was limited to a certain section of the electorate within the so-called Hindi belt of Bihar, Uttar Pradesh, and Madhya Pradesh. Except for a brief span of the Vajpayee-led NDA coalition government, BJP was never really regarded as a serious political contender for power at the national level.
The 2014 elections, however, brought about an incredible change in the Indian political landscape. Narendra Modi in the next six-years has virtually whitewashed the entire opposition. At least, on the national stage BJP, today finds itself in an enviable position with the INC seeing itself as the largest, most unwanted political force in the country. State elections, one after another, are witnessing a faster decline of the Congress where even the state parties are seen dictating terms to what once was the undisputed ruling elite of the country.
Though the Modi-led BJP government has been accused by critics of winning elections by polarising voters and Hindutava politics, there have been some real successes in the form of Jan-Dhan accounts, direct subsidy transfer (DST), the merger of weak nationalised banks, rapid infrastructural development, some very critical economic reforms in the form of bankruptcy laws, real estate laws, consumer laws and reforms in the space and military sector which will certainly help India in becoming a major political, economic and military power in the next five-six years.
Even at the peak of demonetisation crisis, GST implementation, CAA protests, Covid-19 induced migrant crisis or the ongoing farmers’ agitation against the newly introduced farm laws, the popularity of Modi as the PM and his government remains high. There have been explicit instances of the BJP using money power to engineer defections or form governments in some states but somehow criticism apart, the greater Indian electorate from all segments remain positively inclined to the current Indian government.
That is indicative of the significant change that has taken place in the Indian political landscape. The BJP of today is extremely well-positioned in terms of political acumen, strategy, money power besides of course the support of the Indian masses. Indian National Congress, on the other hand, has remained a family-owned political entity whose market value, in terms of electoral victories, has gone down considerably.
The continuation of the Nehru-Gandhi family members in the form of Sonia Gandhi and her two children, Rahul and Priyanka at the helm of INC has for long debilitated the party. Sonia who has been for quite some time, politically inactive on account of medical reasons, has shown her preference for son Rahul as the head of the party and a prospective PM candidate. With Dr. Manmohan Singh, the respected former PM showing a clear detachment for an active political profile, that has compelled other equipped leaders with a better stature like P Chidambaram, Shashi Tharoor, Kharge, Kamal Nath, Gehlot, and others to remain in the background. The younger brigade led by the likes of Sachin Pilot, Jitendra Prasad, Deora, Jyotirditya Scindia (who has moved on to BJP) undoubtedly are disillusioned and could well be planning an exit strategy in due course.
With INC remaining stuck in the family, its political fortunes continue to plummet. The regional satraps like Lalu Prasad Yadav (Bihar), Akhilesh Yadav and Mayawati (UP), Deve Gowda (Karnataka), Uddhav Thakre and Sharad Pawar (Maharashtra), Mamta Banerjee (WB) and Kejriwal (Delhi) are politicians lacking charisma and credibility. Except for Kejriwal (who has limited local appeal) none of the leaders are even comfortably placed in respective states, leave aside the national politics, to face Modi nationally. The leftists like CPI, CPI(M), and radical CPI(M-L) continue to have pockets of influence in certain limited areas. However, seen from a pan-India basis, leftists have lost ground and credibility to such an extent that a real turnaround for them is virtually impossible.
In this changing political landscape, the Modi-led BJP government currently is in a position of TINA (There Is No Alternative), a position that till thirty years back was used to be associated with a family-led Congress party. The nineties and the later tenure of the UPA government, saw an unstable era of coalitions and the electorate certainly has shown his dislike of that sort of governance. Modi with his authoritarian but purposeful governance style and humble background has created an aura that has played a significant role in changing the political landscape of India. Till when it continues, will depend to a great extent on how the Congress party emerges from its internal squabbles to lead a united opposition to offer some semblance of a real political fight to the incumbent Modi dispensation.