Desperately Rahul

LEADER OF THE Opposition (LoP) and former Congress President Rahul Gandhi does not conceal his bias towards minorities.  The obvious reason is that without Muslim votes Congress would suffer an electoral collapse.

Congress’ national vote share has averaged around 20 per cent in the last three Lok Sabha elections. Without strong Muslim support, that could plunge to less than 10 per cent. The party’s Lok Sabha seats could drop from 99 to less than 20. For Congress, the Muslim vote is therefore a matter of electoral life or death.

When Sonia Gandhi seized control of Congress in 1998, the spectre of Atal Bihari Vajpayee leading the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) to victory unnerved her. Rahul, 28, was still not in politics. After six years of India’s first BJP-led NDA government, Sonia took three steps. One, she brought Rahul into electoral politics in the 2004 Lok Sabha poll. Rahul, then 34, won from the family borough of Amethi. Two, after Congress received just seven more seats than BJP in 2004 (145 against 138), she quickly stitched together the UPA I coalition government, principally with support of the Left’s 59 MPs.

Three, Sonia declined the prime ministership. Instead she nominated Manmohan Singh till Rahul was ready for high office. Singh publicly said he would vacate the prime ministership in favour of Rahul the moment Rahul or Sonia asked him to.

But there were dark clouds gathering on the horizon. By 2012, the Anna Hazare movement against Congress corruption had stripped the party of its moral authority. The rise in Gujarat of Narendra Modi represented an even bigger electoral danger. This is when Rahul and Sonia pivoted decisively towards their trusted minority vote bank. Both knew Congress’ national vote share was fragile. In 2004, Congress had pulled off an electoral heist with a vote share of 26.53 per cent and 145 seats. In 2009, the Congress vote share edged up to 28.55 per cent. Seats rose to 206.

The Gandhis now pondered: how could Congress breach the 30 per cent vote share barrier that would guarantee it a clear majority in Parliament? With Modi a looming shadow in 2013, the answer: tighten the embrace on minorities. That proved to be a fatal mistake. Modi used Congress’ minorityism to vacuum away moderate Hindu votes. In the 2014 General Election, BJP increased its national vote share from a low of 18.80 per cent in 2019 to 31 per cent. Its seats more than doubled from 116 to 282. Congress’ vote share meanwhile plunged from 28.55 per cent to 19.31 per cent. Seats fell from 206 to 44.

Rahul accepted blame for the Congress wipeout in 2014 but did not address the reasons for it. He took to targeting Modi. After failing to unseat the Modi-led government for the third successive time in 2024, an embittered Rahul began to target India, equating it with Modi.

The Muslim vote bank had by now become critical to Congress’ electoral revival. Rahul’s vehement parliamentary opposition to the Waqf Act 2025 was an attempt to consolidate the Muslim vote. The Pahalgam attack by Pakistani terrorists was a setback for Rahul’s Muslim outreach. With hardcore Muslim leaders like AIMIM chief Asaduddin Owaisi strongly backing military action against Pakistan, Rahul was forced into silence.

The silence ended within weeks. Rahul attacked External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar in a post on X:

“Informing Pakistan at the start of our attack was a crime. EAM has publicly admitted that GOI did it.

1. Who authorised it?
2. How many aircraft did our airforce lose as a result?”

Rahul was fully aware that India’s DGMO, Lt General Rajiv Ghai, had called Pakistan’s DGMO Major General Kashif Abdullah as part of protocol. Ghai informed Abdullah on May 7 “after” the initial 23-minute attack by India on nine Pakistani terror sites that the operation had concluded and no military targets had been struck.

To distort that to imply Jaishankar had given information to Pakistan “before” the attack began and call it a crime was a new low for Indian politics. Rahul’s charge was inaccurate and defamatory. It also did not achieve the objective of appeasing India’s Muslims who largely stood by India’s military action against Pakistan.

The only constituency Rahul appeased was Pakistan which broadcast his post on every prime-time channel.

CongressLeaders of OppositionNarendra ModiRahul GandhiSonia Gandhi