Latest Bee in Rahul’s Bonnet

REMEMBER THE RUN-UP to the 2019 Lok Sabha polls? Rahul Gandhi had hammered only one theme day and night all over the country. It was: “Chowkidar Chor Hai”, pegging the charge on the Rafale deal. The outcome of the polls showed that he found no takers. But full marks to him. He continued merrily chanting the same charade, despite the courts, after vetting the procurement process, having detected nothing untoward. Cut to circa 2022. Yet again, a few months ahead of the 2024 polls, and on the very eve of the voting for the Karnataka Assembly, the 52-year-old is obsessing with the same theme: Chowkidar Chor Hai. This time, Rafale has made way for Adani. The intervention by the New York-based short-seller Hindenburg Research may have triggered a sharp correction in the Adani Group shares, especially when the group companies were indeed overleveraged. But how that establishes a nexus between Modi and Adani is beyond anyone’s comprehension. But then the Gandhi scion seems capable of ferreting out dark secrets when lesser mortals know fully well that none exists.

As an aside, I do feel that the short-seller’s self-serving report may have actually done Adani a lot of good. Insofar as the business house can now catch its breath, given the supersonic speed at which it had taken to running in recent years. A highly overleveraged growth is always open to the ever-fickle market mood, with the creditors free to call in their loans at any time. And thus leave the big borrower stranded without anyone ready to come to his rescue, especially when the external environment becomes unfriendly, if not downright hostile. Post Hindenburg, Adani should consolidate and plan systematic growth in a few core sectors instead of growing higgledy-piggledy in every conceivable direction.

As for the latest bee in Rahul’s bonnet, Adani having effectively nailed the canard of about ₹20,000 crore in shell companies by substantiating the source of those funds—though, strictly speaking, he was not obliged to—he had better ignore the de facto boss of Congress and get on with his urgent task of tending to his businesses. He knows fully well that he is not the real target—how can it be while several Congress governments freely do business with him?

Modi, of course, is the real target. But it seems that Modi, too, is sitting pretty, confident that the voter in 2024 will effectively repeat what he had done in 2019, and reject Rahul with the contempt with which he has come to see him all these years. But, as we said, full marks to Rahul Gandhi for nursing his obsessive streak, even if it costs the party he was born to control yet another election. Where do we get leaders these days who can live out their fantasies even if it proves ruinous for their political parties?

Having convinced himself that without tarnishing the Modi image it is hard to defeat him, Rahul must try and throw mud 24×7 at his target. The traditional option of strengthening the grassroots organisation, empowering regional and sub-regional leaders, putting in place a well-thought-out alternative programme package, etc, entails hard work. Now, it is too much to expect someone born with the proverbial silver spoon in his mouth to be ready and willing to slog at the grassroots. That is for the likes of Modi and Amit Shah and countless other RSS-BJP leaders who have come up the hard way, working their way up from the mandal and nagar levels to the pradesh and rashtriya levels.

WHAT IS IT with some people who upon retirement claim to know all that is wrong with the functioning of the institutions they were an integral part of until only recently? Whether they are former civil servants or diplomats, or for that matter judges of the higher courts, wisdom seems to dawn only post-retirement. Take, for instance, a former judge of the Delhi High Court. Every other day, she is seen dissecting this or that order of the apex court, pinning holes in it. Pontificating seems to come naturally to her. But if anyone had cared to make a cursory inquiry about her time as a judge, they would have found her functioning lackadaisical. But then, pontification does not entail hard work, does it?

Adani GroupcorruptionGeneral election 2024Narendra ModipoliticsRahul Gandhi