Duel Time for the Prince

 

 

Way back in 1985, the father plucked a plucky scientist cum entrepreneur from Silicon Valley in the United States to give shape to his vision of an India driven by telecom and IT. Twenty two years down the road, the son wants to use the same strategy to harness India’s knowledge base and reap the demographic advantage. Sam Pitroda seems to be a factor common to both Rajiv and Rahul Gandhi.

There are many other things common between them. Rajiv Gandhi was a political greenhorn; no one will call Rahul anything more than that. The CPM ruled West Bengal in the Rajiv era; the CPM will probably continue to rule West Bengal even if Rahul manages the seeming miracle of weaving an era around him. Rajiv had to contend with a gaggle of squabbling Congress leaders whose core competence was sycophancy and back biting; Rahul faces a similar situation. Rajiv instinctively appealed to the youth; so does Rahul.

The similarities probably end there and the differences appear ominous. Rajiv’s Congress ruled Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Gujarat, Maharashtra and Orissa with brute majorities. Rahul’s Congress has been virtually wiped out of UP and Bihar; it has lost power in Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh; it is in danger of becoming a junior partner to Sharad Pawar’s NCP in Maharashtra and it is in serious danger of becoming a B-Team of Narendra Modi in Gujarat. Rajiv’s Congress had 413 seats in Parliament. Can Rahul’s Congress even hope to reach 250 seats? Rajiv never had to bother with alliances. But can Rahul afford to ignore Lalu Yadav, M.Karunanidhi and Sharad Pawar, to name just a few? As the Congress and the Left appear busy driving the last few nails in the coffin that was a marriage of convenience over the nuclear deal; and as General Elections appear inevitable, these are some facts of life playing hard on the minds of the newly appointed General Secretary of the Congress, Rahul Gandhi, and the crack team he is assembling around him. After a series of closed-door meetings, it has been decided that Rahul’s Congress will fall back on the ‘development’ plank, just the way Rajiv Gandhi had done. Rahul’s main mission is to fulfill his father’s dream. That also includes eradicating poverty. The first step that he took was indeed historic - he got the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act extended to the entire country. He is truly committed,” says Jyotiraditya Scindia, Member of Parliament and a key member of the team that has started preparations for the 10th General Elections.

Scindia, Jitin Prasada, R.K. Dhawan and scores of other Congress leaders who spoke to TSI - both on and off the record - seem convinced that it is imperative for the voter across the country to look at Rahul the way they looked at his grandmother Indira Gandhi - a messiah of the poor; and Rajiv Gandhi - a clean youthful face with new ideas. But as mentioned earlier, times have changed irretrievably and Rahul simply does not enjoy the certainties that his father and grandmother could take for granted.

Shorn of jargon, there are three key challenges that Rahul and his team have to confront and overcome if the Congress can even dream of reviving itsdays of glory. The first is the formidable task of rebuilding the party at the grassroots level and channelising the energy of feuding state level leaders towards winning electoral strategies. The second is the tricky and exasperating task of managing prickly allies who simply cannot be wished away - at least not in the near future. The third is what TSI would call the ‘Mayawati’ factor - perhaps the most dangerous Damocles' sword hanging over the future of the Congress and the team led by Rahul. The enormity of the first challenge is evident when you look at the elections to the Uttar Pradesh assembly that were organised during the summer of 2007. Everywhere that Rahul Gandhi went, enthusiastic and even ecstatic crowds thronged his public meetings, chasing his cavalcade as if he was a rock or a film star. The repeated assertions that Rahul made about the youth being the future of the country did appear to strike a chord everywhere. Crowds roared their approval when Rahul announced in his meetings, “I am here to open the door for the youth.” The manner in which candidates were selected for the elections also appeared novel. Rahul gave a chance to many young candidates as well to contest in the assembly elections. He stood firmly with Pankaj Malik, a prospective candidate from Bagra, and gave him the ticket to contest in spite of all kinds of opposition from the party head in the state. Eventually, Pankaj Malik won the Bagra seat.

But the cruel fact is that these victories were few and far between. By the time the results were announced and political pundits who had made various forecasts were looking for places to hide their heads in embarrassment, Mayawati had become the undisputed queen of Uttar Pradesh. And the Congress tally was stuck at a pathetic 22 seats in a house of 405 members. Quite simply, the party organisation is such a shambles that it simply could not translate Rahul’s charisma into votes. Nor did Congress leaders of the state stop in-fighting before, during and after elections. Says an insider, “ Let's say Rita Bahuguna is asked to lead the campaign next time. Will Salmaan Khursheed give full support?”

Of course, Rahul Gandhi appears determined to rebuild the party from the grassroots level. But then, Rome was not built in a day.

The second formidable challenge that will confront Rahul is one revolving around allies. Those close to Rahul insist that he is totally against alliances as he is convinced that it is alliances that have allowed regional parties to grow at the expense of the Congress. Tamil Nadu and Bihar seem to be two classic examples. In Tamil Nadu, the Congress is a total non-entity unless it is allied with one of the Dravidian parties; and in Bihar, the Congress has been reduced to a junior partner that survives at the mercy of a certain Lalu Yadav. Yet, no matter how much Rahul (or for that matter, his mother, Sonia Gandhi) dislikes alliances, he has to live with it in the near future. Without allies, the Congress would find it hard to get members into the Lok Sabha from states like West Bengal, Andhra Pradesh, Maharashtra, Bihar, Uttar Pradesh and Jharkhand. Some allies like Lalu Yadav can prove to be reliable and accommodating. Some like the DMK can prove to be recalcitrant and petulant while some others like Mamata Banerjee (if she becomes an ally) could really test the nerves and patience of Rahul Gandhi. More importantly, regional allies, with their own narrow agendas, would constantly thwart any attempt by Rahul Gandhi to build a Pan-Indian consensus on issues of national importance like poverty, unemployment, globalisation and the farmers' crisis. How will he tackle that? Says Jyotiraditya Scindia, “ We need to have a much more localised strategy than a global strategy. Rahul is quite concerned over the growing caste factor in Indian politics”

Rahul may be quite concerned about the growing caste equations in Indian politics and according to Scindia, seems convinced that the “Congress needs to focus more and more on developmental work and needs to generate awareness among voters”. But that will still not take away from the third and most formidable challenge that confronts Rahul Gandhi - the Mayawati factor. Capitalising on the waves of social engineering unleashed by a former confidant turned enemy of Rajiv Gandhi, V.P Singh, Mayawati has swept to power in Uttar Pradesh. More worrying for the Congress should be Mayawati’s ambitions to repeat the social engineering dream run in states like Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Rajasthan and Gujarat.

Remember, these are four states where the Congress is nicely positioned to benefit from the anti-incumbency vote because all four have been ruled by the BJP for a while. But if Mayawati and BSP manage to eat into the Dalit and backward support base of the Congress even in these states, the party will suffer a twin blow. First, it will fail to get as many Lok Sabha seats as it hopes and more importantly, it would also lose its pre-eminent position in the few states where it does not need allies.

The Mayawati factor is much more than simple caste based politics. It could also prevent Rahul from relentlessly sending out a message of clean, corruption-free, youth-based politics. The rise of regional satraps has also triggered a peculiar phenomenon in Indian politics - corruption doesn’t seem to be an issue with dedicated vote banks. Fodder scam or not, Lalu retains his vote bank intact; and Dalits rejoice when corruption charges are levelled against Mayawati. Their somewhat self defeating refrain, “Upper castes have been looting for centuries. Now it is our turn.” In fact, it is almost becoming a norm for the corrupt, the criminal and the venal to get elected with genuine majorities, without even an overt display of muscle power or booth capturing. To a large extent, Rahul and his team could have successfully countered this logic if poverty and employment schemes of the UPA government like the NREG Programme were implemented effectively and efficiently. In fact, strategists advising Rahul Gandhi have persuaded him to project the NREGP as the main plank for the next elections and are trying to transform his urbane image into that of a messiah of NREGP. But then, of what use will be NREGP be to Rahul Gandhi and Congress if studies in district after district of India report that virtually none of the funds meant for the poor, reach the poor? Why would Dalits, Yadavs and other castes give up their identities if development remains an empty slogan? No wonder, this is the most formidable challenge for Rahul Gandhi because no matter what the power of the Gandhi name, he doesn’t run the government.

Sounds like a pretty dismal picture for Rahul and the Congress. But then Rahul need not go far back into history for inspiration. His own grandmother, Indira Gandhi, successfully sent out the ‘Garibi Hatao’ slogan to beat all odds and emerge triumphant. And in the United Kingdom, Tony Blair led the almost extinct Labour Party to a record three successive victories by simply dumping the deadwood, reinventing the party and communicating well with voters. Tony Blair has cemented his place in history. And he was about 44 years old when he became Britain's Prime Minister.

The key word is communicating. Can Rahul Gandhi do that?