India’s Gandhi wins ‘rebirth’ after shock election comeback

NEW DELHI — Rahul Gandhi’s political career was on life support five years ago. The leader of India’s opposition Congress party — and scion of the Nehru-Gandhi political dynasty — had just suffered a thumping defeat to Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in 2019 polls.

Losing his family’s long-held constituency seat in the election drubbing, Gandhi quit as the head of Congress, while Modi and the BJP mocked the great-grandson of India’s first post-independence leader as an unserious dilettante who they dubbed “the prince”.

But now, after the shock results of India’s national polls last week, the 53-year-old Gandhi is getting a fresh chance at reviving a party — and family name — long at the center of politics in the world’s biggest democracy.

Congress nearly doubled its parliamentary seats to 99 from 52 in India’s 543-seat lower house, known as the Lok Sabha. Most pundits had written off the Congress-led opposition as disorganized with no hope of blocking another landslide by the ruling BJP, which came to power in 2014 after decades of Congress rule.

As a senior Congress leader and the party’s most prominent face, Gandhi’s popularity ratings have soared as he won not one but two of the seats that he contested. The Congress-led opposition alliance, known by its acronym INDIA, took 234 seats in all, denying the BJP the sole majority that it held for a decade.

“The verdict is an extraordinary one,” said Amitabh Tiwari, a political analyst and TV commentator. “It signifies an unexpected revival of the Congress Party-led INDIA opposition alliance and the rebirth of Rahul Gandhi. While earlier there was a looming question mark over the Congress’ future as well as Gandhi’s leadership capabilities, the election results have removed them in one fell swoop.”

The National Democratic Alliance, led by Modi, still won the election with more than 290 seats. And the 73-year-old prime minister clinched a historic third term in office.

That’s a record equaled only by Gandhi’s great-grandfather, Jawaharlal Nehru, the first prime minister of post-colonial India and a close confidante of independence hero Mahatma Gandhi.

His grandmother, Indira Gandhi, and father, Rajiv Gandhi, were also prime ministers — and were both assassinated. That legacy has forced Rahul, his Italian-born mother Sonia and other immediate family members to live under tight security, including being trailed by armed guards in public.

Like his father, a commercial pilot who was pushed into politics after his mother Indira was shot dead by two bodyguards, the younger Gandhi was a reluctant politician.

The Cambridge graduate worked in London before returning to India in 2002. Two years later, he surprised many when he ran for — and won — a parliamentary seat in Uttar Pradesh, India’s most populous state.

While he’s been an MP since 2004, Gandhi hasn’t won a general election for Congress nor has he held a ministerial post. His shaky attendance in parliament has also been criticized by political foes, but he was anointed Congress president in 2017 — the post he gave up after the 2019 election embarrassment.

India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi gestures during his swearing-in ceremony in New Delhi on June 9. (Photo by Suzu Takahashi)

Last week’s surprise election results were likely driven by dissatisfaction with the BJP including over economic grievances such as joblessness and inflation, analysts said.

But they also credit Congress with running a strong social media campaign targeting the younger electorate. In the runup to India’s polls, the unmarried Gandhi led two cross-country marches to reach voters on the ground.

“With Modi losing majority, the era of coalition and competitive politics has arrived in India,” said Vinay Deshpande, a media analyst at Rajneethi, a Bengaluru-based political management consultancy. “It’ll be interesting to watch how this new and improved version of Gandhi consolidates his wins to continue eroding Modi’s vote bank.

“His party was torn asunder by organizational disarray, internal dissensions and attrition. But Gandhi managed to stabilize the ship and will be taken much more seriously in his next stint in parliament,” Deshpande added.

Congress also appears to have won over some voters by hitting back at the BJP’s Hindu nationalist brand of politics and what it called a campaign of hate and fear, including criticism of India’s minority Muslims, observers said.

Congress and Gandhi moved to sell the secularism enshrined in India’s constitution.

“Concepts like secularism, liberalism and inclusivity are a tough sell in a country where the political discourse has coarsened abysmally over the last decade, sullied by constant talk of religious hatred and fundamentalism,” Deshpande said. “Yet the Congress message seems to have resonated with people.”

Gandhi’s critics, however, don’t believe he has what it takes to lead Congress to victory in India’s next election.

“Congress shouldn’t be under the illusion of a victory. It has performed better than expected but it still remains a distant second to the BJP,” said Sumitra Valmiki, state vice president for the BJP in Madhya Pradesh. “Gandhi is also not seen as a prime ministerial alternative to Modi. … His supporters shouldn’t hold their breath.”

SOURCE : asia.nikkei