Moribund I.N.D.I.A.

WHAT GOOD, IF ANY, accrues to Congress’ account from its de facto supremo Rahul Gandhi’s yatras remains unclear, though in sheer financial terms, it burns a huge hole in the party’s finances. Had the second outing of the Gandhi scion on a luxury motorised rath generated even a semblance of goodwill, several members of the dotted opposition alliance would have resisted treating the party with sheer disdain. Trinamool Congress (TMC) chief and West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee would not have so rudely rejected all talk of seat-sharing with Congress, offering just one seat to Rahul’s party out of a total 42 in the state.

This was insulting enough, but Mamata did not stop there. Instead, she went on to proclaim that Congress will be reduced to 40 or even fewer seats in the next Parliament. Yet, not unlike mendicants, Congress leaders from Rahul to Jairam Ramesh sought to mollycoddle the TMC chief, claiming without any conviction that she was an integral part of the moribund I.N.D.I.A. bloc. Is she? Yes, if you accept her offer of a lone seat in all of West Bengal.

Again, Arvind Kejriwal, the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) supremo, offered none of the 13 seats that are there in Punjab, and only one out of the seven seats in Delhi. On merit, AAP said Congress did not even deserve the one seat. Such humiliation for the Grand Old Party was unheard of until only a few years ago when Sonia Gandhi had imperiously lorded over the Manmohan Singh government for a full decade.

In essence, it was a vote of no-confidence against the Gandhis who despite knowing better, refuse to loosen their vice-like grip on the party, determined to take it down with them. If more proof was needed of the poor state of Congress on the eve of the Lok Sabha polls, it was available from the desertions of senior party leaders. The latest was the departure of the two-time Congress Chief Minister of Maharashtra Ashok Chavan for the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), and a former MP and Union Minister, Milind Deora, for the Shiv Sena (Shinde faction).

Politicians have their ear to the ground. When the Gandhis themselves scour the country for safe seats, or contemplate backdoor entry to Parliament through Rajya Sabha, lesser party leaders cannot be blamed for crossing over to the winning side for securing their future. Reportedly, the Communist Party of India has laid claim to Rahul’s Wayanad seat while Sonia Gandhi is seeking entry to Rajya Sabha from Rajasthan, leaving her Raebareli seat to daughter Priyanka.

Given the moribund state of I.N.D.I.A.—for evidence, consider the flight of its main initiator Nitish Kumar to the National Democratic Alliance—Akhilesh Yadav’s Samajwadi Party may not feel inclined to support the entry of yet another Gandhi to Parliament. Akhilesh himself would feel jolted by the move of Rashtriya Lok Dal leader Jayant Chaudhary to tie up with BJP. So, we return to the question of Rahul’s Bharat Jodo Nyay Yatra. While it was on, his party and I.N.D.I.A. were withering away to irrelevance, weren’t they?

A BRITISH MP RECENTLY raised the question of BBC bias, pointedly citing the coverage of the consecration of the Ram temple in Ayodhya last month. Informing listeners that the temple was built on the site of a 500-year-old mosque demolished by BJP followers but refraining from mentioning that the mosque itself was built on a 2000-year-old temple, had particularly angered the Conservative MP. This did not surprise me, a long-time BBC News addict. The slant against the “Hindu Nationalist Government”, as the BBC refers to the Modi sarkar, is ingrained in the BBC’s left-liberal woke culture. Besides, of late, after the merger of the domestic and international news bureaus due to a severe funding freeze, BBC News now is a mish-mash of home and global news, very often the mix tilting towards home news with little or no relevance for global audiences. As a result, one likes to turn to the nightly news bulletins on the French and German TV channels, while occasionally watching a West Asian channel, fully aware of its pronounced anti-BJP tilt.

Arvind KejriwalGeneral election 2024Mamata BanerjeeNational PoliticsRahul Gandhi