On the Road to Recovery

With a resurgent Rahul Gandhi at the reins, the Congress is finally showing signs of a fightback. But is it ready to take on the BJP?

ON JANUARY 20, while campaigning for the state byelections at the end of the month, Rajasthan Congress president Sachin Pilot tweeted: “Price rise, unemployment and economic slowdown are huge issues in rural and urban parts of Rajasthan. The BJP government has no answers to these burning issues. The public mood is for a change.” In this seemingly routine tweet bordering on electoral rhetoric, Pilot, however, captured the collective mood, not only of the people of Rajasthan but of the entire nation. In the January 2018 edition of the India Today Group’s Mood of the Nation opinion poll, 23 per cent respondents—up from 10 per cent a year ago—say that price rice is the issue that concerns them the most. Unemployment still worries 29 per cent of the respondents, marginally down from 32 per cent a year ago.

So at a time when fuel prices have touched the same high of May 2014—when Prime Minister Narendra Modi took charge—and a 2018 Gallup survey indicates a decline in wages of low-skilled labour, Congress president Rahul Gandhi’s focus on the issues of price rise and unemployment makes for a sound political strategy. As the economy went into a spin in 2017 over the GST regime and the aftereffects of demonetisation, Rahul’s incessant barbs against the prime minister seem to have paid dividends—22 per cent today see him as the best prime ministerial candidate for the 2019 elections, a big jump from the 10 per cent support he had a year back.

Yet, the Congress president has much ground to cover before he can be a serious challenger to Modi, who remains the top choice of 53 per cent respondents. The gap is much wider in the northern region where 60 per cent respondents voted for Modi while only 13 per cent opted for Rahul. The five northern states included in the survey—Punjab, Haryana, Delhi, Uttar Pradesh and Rajasthan—account for 135 seats and currently the Congress occupies only seven of them.

Though the Congress snatched power in Punjab from the SAD-BJP coalition in March 2017, the MOTN poll suggests that if Lok Sabha elections were held today, the party is likely to win only 69 seats, against the BJP’s 264. It’s the third time the BJP’s tally has gone below the halfway mark of 272, but the loss has not translated into significant gain for Congress, which has not been able to touch the three-figure mark in the MOTN polls since it plummeted to 44 seats in the 2014 general elections.

Joined by its UPA regime allies, the number touches 102 but the key to any strategy to counter the BJP-led NDA—it will win 309 seats if elections are held today—will be a pre-poll electoral understanding with the “others” who are likely to corner a 33 per cent vote share against the UPA’s projected 27 per cent. The big players among the “others” are the TMC, BJD, TRS, AIADMK, SP, BSP and the Left. Buoyed by the success of the Bihar mahagathbandhan in 2015—it fell apart last year with Nitish Kumar’s JD(U) switching sides to the BJP—Congress veterans such as C.P. Joshi have often propagated the idea of a rainbow coalition revolving around the Congress.

But it may look easier on paper as the real challenge for Rahul lies in bringing bitter rivals such as the TMC and Left, the SP and BSP and the DMK and AIADMK under one umbrella. Besides, the prime ministerial ambition of leaders like West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee also makes such coalition politically fragile. The Gandhi scion, however, can take solace in the fact that 45 per cent respondents see him as the best Opposition alternative to Modi while Mamata is a distant second with the support of just 9 per cent respondents.

What could be encouraging is the fact that Modi’s popularity as a prime ministerial choice has seen a drop of 12 percentage points in the past year. A small consolation for Rahul who, after a 13-year-long internship, took charge of a party now in power in only five states—as against the BJP’s 19. There is a threat of the Congress footprint further shrinking as two more party-ruled states—Meghalaya and Karnataka—go to the polls this year. Congress leaders are confident, though, and feel that besides retaining these two states, it will wrest power from the BJP in the three others going to the polls this year—Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh. “Rahul’s election has energised the entire party cadre, it has galvanised younger leaders to take charge,” says Rajya Sabha MP Ahmed Patel. Sonia’s retirement and Rahul’s cordial relationship with her trusted lieutenants such as Patel have made him the almost unanimous choice as his party’s prime ministerial candidate—54 per cent see him as the best Congress leader for the country’s top political post, up from the 25 per cent respondents who backed him in August 2017.

This is perhaps also recognition of the newly elected party president’s appetite for

risk even when it means going against the party’s traditional stance. Wary of the BJP’s emergence as the party of the Hindus, the Congress has been attempting to propagate its own brand of Hinduism, coupling it with Gandhian principles of love and inclusiveness. So self-confessed Shiva worshipper Rahul Gandhi visited 25 temples during the Gujarat election campaign, which not only increased the party’s tally by 16 seats but restricted the BJP to double digits for the first time in two decades. The acknowledgement came in the MOTN poll as 47 per cent respondents agreed that Rahul’s temple visits challenged the BJP’s Hindutva monopoly. Meanwhile, 48 per cent Muslim respondents too want to see him as the next prime minister, compared to only 19 per cent of them backing Modi.

The Congress also received a shot in the arm when the Supreme Court in December acquitted all the accused in the 2G scam which had made the UPA regime synonymous with corruption. While 44 per cent respondents believe the verdict will benefit the Congress, the MOTN poll tracks another trend—only 17 per cent respondents are most concerned about corruption, down from 21 per cent in January last year.