The Unchallenged

DURING HIS RECENT WEEK-LONG TOUR of the UK, Congress leader Rahul Gandhi spent much time venting his spleen at the ruling BJP and its spearhead, Prime Minister Narendra Modi, besides charging the Central government with stifling democracy and cap­turing institutions. His remarks abroad, especially the ones made in the British parliament that projected India’s leadership in a poor light, have invited displeasure among a section of intellectu­als and ruling-party leaders for trashing the country at a time it holds the G20 chair and is widely appreciated by leaders of vari­ous nations for its multilateralism and diplomatic perspectives. Among the leaders who showered praise on India and especially Modi is Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni who described him as “the most loved” global leader. For her part, South Africa’s Foreign Minister Naledi Pandor saw India’s G20 leadership as an opportunity for the Global South to forge ahead with its priorities. Others welcomed the Indian position of being pragmatic in an uncertain global milieu.

Speaking at a session by Chatham House, a London-based think-tank, Rahul Gandhi continued his attack on the Indian leadership, and most of his accusations were found to be preposterous and dis­paraging by political commentators back home. At Cambridge University, the Nehru-Gandhi scion insinuated that Modi wanted to condemn Sikhs as sec­ond-class citizens. He also made irrespon­sible comments about the India-China situation, comparing the deployment of troops along the Line of Actual Control (LAC) with the situation in Ukraine. He was quoted by ANI as saying, “The ba­sic principle that has been applied in Ukraine is that Russia has told Ukraine that we do not accept your relationship with Europe and America, and if you do not change this relationship, we will challenge your territorial integrity.” He added that what Russia did to Ukraine is what China wants to do to India, a com­ment that has raised eyebrows.

Rahul Gandhi also went on to accuse the Centre of disallowing opposition members from speaking in Parliament. If his own attendance in Parliament is any­thing to go by, his record has been abysmal compared with the average attendance of other MPs. A section of Congress leaders is squirming at the faux pas of their leader on foreign shores, especially since he has failed miserably to rebuild a narrative to resurrect a Congress beset with insur­mountable odds.

The effervescence of grievances from Rahul Gandhi both in India and abroad sums up the country’s political atmosphere. There is a ruling party with an appetite to win at any cost and an opposition that is in disarray and perplexed by the series of elec­toral setbacks since 2014, barring a few. A Delhi-based Congress leader tells Open: “Our leadership is half-hearted about their plans for the elections. The competition is only exposing the gap that is widening between us and the ruling alliance. We are up against a formidable enemy that would leave nothing to chance. Each ward is important to them. And we have a team at the top that lives in the past.”

The opposition’s lack of cohesion, especially within what is projected as a contender, the “Grand Old Party” of India and its muddled message to the people are not designed to click. The fail­ure of those in the opposition to see the writing on the wall—that their popularity is rapidly on the wane—could be attributed to what psychologists had defined as the Dunning-Kruger effect. Psychology Today explains this phenomenon as a “cognitive bias in which people wrongly overestimate their knowledge or ability in a specific area. This tends to occur because a lack of self-awareness prevents them from accurately assessing their skills”.

The recent tranche of victories for the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led combine in the run-up to Assembly elections in crucial states later this year re-emphasises the demolition of traditional walls erect­ed by identity-based parties and once-prominent oppo­sition entities to protect their vote base. That’s why, of late, “the challenger is missing” has become the recur­ring theme of poll outcomes. As a result, the prospects of any contender to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, the spearhead of his coalition’s campaigns, are swiftly fading thanks to their diminishing aura and reach. In addition, provincial leaders, who were hyped as national challengers, face trouble in keeping their flock together within their bastions.

In Indian politics, historically, challengers have invariably come from within. Until 2014, that is. The year 2014 changed history, setting a new prec­edent of an opposition party dismantling India’s Congress-centric politics. Before that, from the days of Congress’ hegemony to its gradual decline in the 1990s, calls for alternative formations had come from Congress rebels or breakaway groups that thought Congress was going astray and capitulating on the values it had earlier stood for.

The first notable personality from Congress’ stable to leave the parent party and become part of breakaway groups—and later forming his socialist outfit that merged with the Samyukta Social­ist Party (SSP)—was Ram Manohar Lohia. A highly educated and charismatic leader, Lohia played a pivotal role in the creation of the first non-Congress government in Uttar Pradesh (UP) in 1967 with the help of Bharatiya Jana Sangh leader Nanaji Deshmukh.

The same is true of Jayaprakash Narayan, a close associate of Gandhi and a friend of Jawaharlal Nehru who, in the 1970s, led the most powerful mobilisation of people against Indira Gandhi. Indira Gandhi declared Emergency in 1975 which lasted till 1977, only to lose in the elections held that year. It was the first time Congress lost power at the Centre and a non-Congress govern­ment was installed in New Delhi.

Other names of people who were instrumental in the change of guard at the Centre include Chaudhary Charan Singh, a former Congress veteran who later became the first non-Congress chief minister of UP in 1967, and later in 1979-80 the second non-Con­gress prime minister. He was piqued by the fact that Jayaprakash Narayan’s choice for prime minister of the Janata Party coalition in 1977 following Indira Gandhi’s defeat was Morarji Desai. VP Singh and Chandra Shekhar, who became prime ministers a decade later following a major realignment of forces (many of those launched by former Congress leaders), were from the Congress fold too.

Even the first non-Congress prime minister to complete a full term in office, BJP’s Atal Bihari Vajpayee (1998-2004), was backed to the hilt by a rainbow coalition that included former constitu­ents and leaders formerly affiliated with Congress.

But times are changing. Congress’ strength in Parliament and elsewhere is at its lowest. It is true of other entities as well, such as the Left Front and regional parties that had some decades earlier and in the first decades of this century played a crucial role in the formation of governments at the Centre. Electorally and organ­isationally, they are in decline. The Left has shrunk from being in power in three states to just one, and its tally in Lok Sabha is the lowest ever after it got virtually wiped out of its bastions in the 2019 General Election.

This doesn’t mean there isn’t any political space for opposi­tion parties in this country. But due to BJP maintaining its growth momentum and marrying its brand of nationalism with effective delivery of welfare schemes as well as development projects, past tactics to stereotype and batter BJP are becoming increasingly futile. Ironically, opposition parties have largely failed to come up with new slogans or ideas to take on the ruling coalition at the hustings. In popular perception, the opposition is a collective entity that has lost its sense of purpose. Its leaders do not measure up, either indi­vidually or together, to challenge the narrative set in motion by BJP.

BJP has over the years consistently decimated vote banks considered the preserve of certain political parties, chief among them being those that largely monopolised the votes of the Other Backward Classes (OBC) and Dalits. BJP’s emphasis on wooing the most backward among OBCs—those left out of political roles by dominant groups among them, as well as those Dalits denigrated by prominent and aggressive castes amongst them—has paid off. The party’s victory across multiple states in the north brings to the fore the success of its outreach to non-Yadav OBCs and non-Jatav Dalits. BJP’s triumph in the most populous state of UP in the 2019 elections against the combined might of the Samajwadi Party (SP) led by Akhilesh Yadav and the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) of Mayawati was proof of all the gains of its strategic outreach. BJP and its allies maintained their good show in the 2022 state Assem­bly election, too, just as they did in 2017, winning by a landslide.

As of now, the Yadav community remains the only social grouping that has not fully aligned with BJP. But then, the win­nability of this community is limited to Bihar and certain parts of UP, and its numerical strength in these states is not enough to tide over the wave created by BJP which now enjoys the support of a constellation of social groups, many of whom felt slighted by the Yadavs during their time in the sun.

It is not just coalitions formed with the objective of isolat­ing BJP that have hit the skids. Other contenders to the national throne are increasingly looking feeble. Trinamool Congress (TMC) leader Mamata Banerjee, who was being pitched by a section of analysts and her party itself as a challenger to Modi, miserably trailed her expectations in the Northeast in the recently concluded elections to Tripura and Meghalaya. Notwithstanding the razzmatazz of its poll campaign, the party drew a blank in Tri­pura and won only five seats in Meghalaya where it was hoping to do well pulling in Bengali votes. Its vote count was lower than those cast in the NOTA (None of the Above) category in Tripura. In last year’s Goa elections, TMC failed to open its account. The latest setback leaves her confined to West Bengal.

Bharat (formerly Telangana) Rashtra Samithi (BRS) supremo and Telangana Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao was another challenger who had pitched himself into the ring last year. He had earlier backed BJP during the passage of crucial bills: his party had supported Modi’s demonetisation project and abstained during the passing of the Triple Talaq Bill. But he sensed an opportunity some­time last year and launched into a tirade against the prime minister over a raft of issues. Earlier this year, he convened a meeting of op­position party leaders in Khammam which was attended by the chief ministers of Kerala, Delhi, Punjab, former UP Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav, and a few others. Janata Dal-United, or JD(U), leader and Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar, who is turning out to be a liability for Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) leader and Deputy Chief Minister Tejashwi Yadav, did not attend the meeting citing prior engagements, and hastened to add back then that such a meeting should not be seen as a “new grouping”. This means Kumar is not only averse to anyone else emerging as a consensus choice of the opposition but he also believes that he could still be a contender. “That explains the extent of lack of unity and purpose among the opposition ranks,” states a Congress leader. Congress, too, is not ready to cede its fading role as a preeminent opposition party, as evident from Rahul Gandhi’s posturing in India and elsewhere.

The likes of Tamil Nadu Chief Minister MK Stalin and others from the opposition have not risen beyond the stature of provin­cial leaders to be able to get into the role of national statesmen. Language, political culture, and lack of exposure to the national scheme of things are huge shortcomings for such leaders.

The Left parties, which had in the past played a pivotal role in the formation of non-Congress and non-BJP governments, have neither any leader nor the political heft to initiate any opposition-level talks to form even a tentative anti-BJP grouping. They are now reduced to the margins of Indian politics, retaining power only in Kerala after losing massively in West Bengal in 2011 and Tripura in 2018.

With others punching far above their weight and Congress still grappling with leadership issues, sticking to dynasty rule, and showing no signs of expanding its turf or devising a new message, opposition unity is more of a myth now than it is overrated. BJP, on the other hand, is in no mood to cede an inch. It is in a perpetual mode of preparedness that can be aptly described as “hope for the best, expect the worst”.

Assembly Elections 2023BJPGeneral election 2024MeghalayaNagalandNarendra ModiRahul GandhiTripura