It is curious that Mr. Gopalkrishna Gandhi accepted the invitation of opposition political parties and contested the Indian Vice Presidential election, knowing very well that he would not win the election. What did he try to prove or achieve by this?
We all think that Mr. Gopalkrishna Gandhi is not a member of any political party nor have any particular political affiliation. However, by contesting as an opposition candidate, he gives a clear impression that he is opposed to Modi’s governance and share whatever philosophy that the opposition parties have.
In such case, it would have been more appropriate on his part to have joined any one of the political parties before contesting the election as a candidate of the opposition parties. One cannot be a candidate of opposition parties opposing the candidate of the ruling party and then claim that he is apolitical.
It would have been much better if Mr. Gandhi, who claims that he is apolitical, has declared that he was an independent candidate for the Vice Presidential election and not a candidate of any political party and sought the support of all political parties. He did not do so
The same logic applies to former President Dr. Abdul Kalam also, who was considered to be apolitical. But, he accepted the nomination of Vajpayee government and contested and won the Presidential election, which means that he shared the ideology of Vajpayee government.
It is noteworthy that in the Presidential and Vice Presidential election campaign, the candidate of the opposition parties never seek the support of the ruling party members and vice versa, apparently implying that the so called apolitical candidates are not apolitical.
The problem today is that we have many claimants for free thinking and intellectual capabilities, who criticize or support ruling party or opposition party at every opportunity and write scholarly articles and give eloquent speeches. But, they will never jump into the fray.
Apparently, they want to have cake and eat it too.
This is where the first Indian Governor General Rajaji was different. He was a great intellectual and opposed governance of Jawaharlal Nehru. He was never an armchair critic and had the courage of conviction and started his political party to oppose the governance of Nehru.