Editorial: Will Rahul Gandhi, the aggressor, succeed?

The image of Congress leader and Member of Parliament, Rahul Gandhi with his beard flowing after the 3,500-kilometre Bharat Jodo Yatra, holding up a poster in Lok Sabha this week was made popular by television and social media. It was an old photograph of Prime Minister Narendra Modi in a relaxed and nonchalant half-recline with industrial magnate Gautam Adani on the latter’s private jet, and has been used to signify the proximity — or affinity — between the two. When Gandhi displayed it in the LS during his speech on the motion of thanks to the President’s address, irrespective of whether it was expunged later or not, he had raised questions about the close relationship between India’s Prime Minister and India’s wealthiest industrialist in a manner that could not be ignored. This was no election rally in a far corner, this was the Parliament of India.

Gandhi, seemingly unafraid of consequences of raising difficult issues in the last few years and unwilling to listen to advice that he may be hurting his own political future, has continued to play the role of the boy who, in the midst of everyone applauding the emperor’s jewels, calls out that the “Emperor has no clothes”. What Gandhi — fresh with vim, vigour and renewed hope after completing the yatra — has done is put his finger on the one calling card that Modi has taken great pride in – incorruptibility. He made no direct accusations but asked questions that have been commonly raised across India about Adani’s more-than-spectacular rise which coincides with the Modi era. What Gandhi showed was that he had the stomach for a fight with the man that many Indians revere and blindly follow. In side-stepping all the issues of cronyism and favouritism that Gandhi raised, Modi may have strengthened Gandhi’s resolve to stay in the fight.

Whether these charges can be turned into a political knockout or not depends not only on Gandhi’s moves in the weeks and months ahead but also on the Congress party’s preparedness to turn it into a political-electoral issue. Insinuations and charges of corruption and cronyism have brought down governments but it was a different India in 1989 when VP Singh raised the Bofors flag against Rajiv Gandhi and a less cultish India when India’s right-wing groups raised the issue against Dr Manmohan Singh’s government in 2011-12. In both cases, there was a well-organised support and strategy in taking on those in power. Corruption is no longer an electorally-sensitive issue. Gandhi scores full marks for playing the role of a committed opposition leader but it will take more than passion alone for his renewed aggression to hurt Modi in electoral terms.

When citizens matter less than dignitaries

Mumbai has had a spate of inaugurations of public infrastructure projects in the last few weeks. The two metro lines inaugurated recently were followed by the flagging off of two Vande Bharat trains from Mumbai – one to Solapur and other to Shirdi – as well as two connector roads in the city. Prime Minister Narendra Modi graced all the occasions. Cynics may wonder why such micro projects need the august presence of the Prime Minister of the country and the formalities cannot be done by state-level or city-level dignitaries. Such cynics may have a point but it would be a limited one. The purpose here is not merely the projects themselves but the larger intention to gain the maximum political mileage in a season when elections to the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) are overdue.

The Bharatiya Janata Party, along with the Balasahebanchi Shiv Sena headed by chief minister Eknath Shinde, has set its eyes on securing complete majority in the BMC where it has always shared power, in a smaller measure, with the undivided Shiv Sena for nearly four decades. For the party, there is no mascot who resonates more with the electorate than Modi – whether in a national election or local civic body election. If the Uddhav Thackeray-led government was still at the helm, it would have cornered the credit and visibility that naturally accrue while inaugurating such projects, now the BJP has the entire playing field. The only immediate benefit of this charade is that the areas in the Prime Minister’s itinerary get a swift facelift and are turned sparkling clean. Why, even pavements miraculously appeared and tree bases on pavements got fresh red mud. How appropriate and heartening it would be if the BMC did this on a regular basis for all citizens, not merely for a visiting dignitary.