The Congress is fighting two battles, one is the electoral one against the BJP in the oncoming Assembly elections and the other is the battle within as some members of the G-23 fired another salvo from Jammu last week. Whichever way you look at it, it’s a tussle for power.
The Congress high command (read the Gandhi family) has tried to create a wedge in the G-23 by weaning away those it can with party posts and responsibility. That’s also a smart move because it’s always easy to criticise from afar (as is what happened after the Bihar debacle) but not so easy if you are part of the process. For instance, what stopped Kapil Sibal who has been a Rajya Sabha member from Bihar from campaigning in the state during the polls. While he did not campaign, he did criticise the poor showing post polls. In fact, the only leader who campaigned in both Bihar and the Madhya Pradesh bypolls (apart from Rahul Gandhi) was Sachin Pilot. But therein lies another story.
Social media is also full of images of the Gandhi siblings with Rahul deployed in the South and Priyanka Gandhi in the north—so far, she has been focusing in Uttar Pradesh, but last week saw her dancing the Jhumur dance with tribals of Assam during her two-day visit to the state. Rahul too was seen doing push ups with college students in Tamil Nadu and jumping into the sea with fishermen in Kerala. The subliminal message is clear—the Gandhi siblings are leading from the front and owning this election campaign. Deputing Chhattisgarh CM Bhupesh Baghel in charge of Assam has also given the leaderless party a fighting chance to wrest the state away from the astute Hemanta Biswa Sarma because Chhattisgarh is the only Congress-ruled-state that has access to funds.
Given the B+ for effort, perhaps the rebels who met in Jammu should have waited till the Assembly polls were over before declaring open hostilities. That battle is pencilled in on the Congress calendar, for the party’s elections for president are slated post the Assembly results. Maybe that was the time to bring out the divisions within. Why this rush to praise Narendra Modi?
As things stand, the Congress is really fighting a battle to win in Assam and Kerala; in Tamil Nadu, it’s in the role of a supporting actor at best. However, Kerala is important as that’s the state where Rahul Gandhi is now an MP from, that is also a state where he made his now infamous North Vs South comment. It was a gamble and he really needs it to work so he is focusing all his energies in the South, leaving Assam in the hands of the Chhattisgarh CM and some shrewd alliances.
For the BJP the big fight really is in West Bengal and Assam and if the Opposition can somehow stop the saffron party in its tracks here then it could be the turnaround in the fortunes of the Modi government. The onus of stopping the BJP in West Bengal is on Mamata Banerjee, while the Congress is doing its bit in dividing the anti-TMC vote. And all this is happening against the backdrop of the farmers’ protests which is now firmly established as an anti-BJP movement.
Given all this, at a time when the rest of the Opposition, including the Congress, is focusing on stopping the BJP in its tracks, perhaps the dissidents should have waited till the Assembly polls were over before diverting from the agenda.