In PM Modi, Rahul faces the toughest opponent
NEW DELHI: Rahul Gandhi’s ascendance to lead the Congress comes at a time when the popularity of the 131-year-old party has dipped to an all-time low and its arch rival BJP is marching towards complete dominance.
After decimating the Congress in the 2014 Lok Sabha elections, the footprints of the saffron party on the country’s map have increased considerably. The BJP won 282 of the 543 seats and the Congress registered its lowesttally of 44. From six states in 2012, the BJP and its allies now control 18 states, effectively ruling more than 70% of the population.
The massive saffron surge started soon after Narendra Modi was named as the BJP’S prime ministerial candidate in 2013 and since then, it hasn’t looked back.
On the other hand, the Congress is in power in Karnataka, Punjab, Puducherry, Mizoram, Meghalaya and Himachal Pradesh. The fate of the ruling Congress in Himachal is sealed in EVMS and will be known on December 18. The two northeastern states are going to polls in February. Assembly elections are due in Karnataka in Marchapril next year.
As he takes over the baton from his mother Sonia Gandhi, 47-year-old Rahul faces the daunting task of not only reviving the Congress but also arresting the saffron surge before going to the 2019 Lok Sabha polls.
Though he could take some lessons from his mother who faced a similar situation when she took over as Congress president in 1998, Rahul, by far, has to counter the toughest rival ever in the form of Modi.
Political experts agree that Rahul is taking over the reins at a difficult time. “The country today is witnessing a polarised scenario that had never been seen in the past decade. He is certainly facing a strong opponent and this challenge had never been confronted by any other Congress president,” said Delhi-based political analyst Bhaskar Rao.
Rahul’s grandmother and late PM Indira Gandhi, who was once dubbed as a “goongi gudiya (dumb doll)” by socialist leader Ram Manohar Lohia, faced a united opposition led by Jayaprakash Narayan in the wake of the Emergency but that crumbled within three years. Similarly, his father Rajiv Gandhi’s rivals, who came from diverse and conflicting ideologies, could not stay together for long and disintegrated within three years.
Sonia overcame opposition from within and outside over her foreign origin issue and led the party to consecutive victories in 2004 and 2009 polls despite the Atal Bihari Vajpayee government’s “India shining” and “feel good” campaigns that prompted the BJP to advance the general elections.
EARLY TURBULENCE
After her husband and former PM Rajiv Gandhi was assassinated in 1991, Sonia rejected pleas to join the Congress. However, she finally shed her reluctance and agreed to join politics in 1997.
On March 14, 1998, she was elected Congress president. But more than a year later on May 15, 1999, just before Lok Sabha elections, she resigned after senior leaders Sharad Pawar, PA Sangma and Tariq Anwar opposed her being projected as the party’s PM candidate.
“Although born in a foreign land, I chose India as my country and would remain an Indian till my last breath. India is my motherland, dearer to me than my own life,” Sonia wrote in her resignation letter to the CWC. The move prom-pted agitation from Congress workers and she agreed to take back her resignation after the party expelled Pawar, Sangma and Anwar on May 20.
THE MASTERSTROKE Sonia stunned the world in 2004 when she declined the PM’S post after the Congress-led UPA came to power. She again gave a shock to her political adversaries on March 23, 2006, when she resigned from the Lok Sabha and the National Advisory Council in the wake of the office-of-profit controversy. However, she was re-elected.
CRITICISM
Though Rahul had virtually taken over the Congress as its de facto head, it was under Sonia’s leadership that the party registered its worst ever electoral performance bagging just 44 seats in the 2014 Lok Sabha polls.