Prime Minister Narendra Modi launched the NDA’s re-election bid from the ramparts of the Red Fort with casual flair, pitching his two-term tenure as a continuum of transformations that will inevitably lead to ‘Viksit Bharat’. At the same time, he put the Congress in a sticky spot.
He made two telling points. First, that the outcomes of the 2014 and 2019 general elections represented a vote for stable government, as opposed to a rag-tag coalition. Such a government had been able to ‘reform, perform and transform’ only because it was free of political ‘compulsions’. The message was clear — a coalition government forced to cater to multifarious vested interests merely to hang on to power cannot put ‘India first’. In other words, voting for the Congress is tantamount to voting against development.
Second, he identified the Congress as the de facto Opposition when he spoke of a political party ‘of the family, by the family and for the family’. By singling out the Congress, he signified that its regional allies didn’t matter. This was intended to put the Congress, whose alliance partners are already wary of its big brother attitude and prime ministerial aspirations, on the defensive. Could a party run along anti-democratic lines be inclined to give an equitable share of power to its allies?
The Congress is already on the backfoot, for having failed to make political capital from the no-trust motion last fortnight. The Opposition was on a high, congratulating itself on having forced the PM to address the House on Manipur. But it ended up giving the PM and Home minister Amit Shah a chance to grandstand, thanks to disappointing speeches by Opposition leaders (including Rahul Gandhi) and an uncoordinated attack.
Nor was the Congress able to come up with a forceful response to the PM’s 10th Independence Day address. For lack of anything to say that would serve to counter Modi, it dubbed the speech as ‘crass’, and fell back on the ‘democracy in danger’ trope. Abuse of power (to target rival politicians) and constitutional overreach may be valid concerns, but they don’t affect the aam aadmi.
Why is the Congress so woefully short of ideas? With all the intellectual wealth at its disposal — lawyers, economists, former academic dons, MBAs and public policy experts, many of them Harvard or Oxbridge educated — it has not been able to match Modi in the realm of ideas. In contrast to a man who obtained his BA through distance learning, it has failed time and again to join the dots between what people want and what the country needs.
Picking an example at random, consider Modi’s idea of training women’s self-help groups (SHGs) in drone technology. Agricultural extension workers need to monitor crops and fields to optimise operations like irrigation, soil amendment, pesticide spraying and yield estimation, or to assess crop damage for insurance purposes. By handing over the job to SHGs, the government saves on manpower, encourages farmers to adopt agritech solutions and ensures an income boost for women. Packaged as a ‘lakhpati didi’ scheme, it is bound to enthuse rural women.
Modi spoke blithely of semiconductors, quantum computers, nanotechnology, AI and the tremendous strides taken in the space sector. This is language that appeals to young people in small towns across the country. Yet Rahul Gandhi, who went all the way to Silicon Valley to learn about cutting-edge technology in 2017, has mentioned semiconductors only in the context of the proposed Vedanta Foxconn chip fab unit being shifted out of Maharashtra to Gujarat.
In 2004, the Congress ousted the NDA by posing a simple question: ‘Aam aadmi ko kya mila?’. A simple, powerful slogan that took the mickey out of the NDA’s ill-conceived ‘India Shining’ campaign. Today, asking that question amounts to a self goal. The changes wrought by Modi are too visible to brush aside.
The majority of voters are old enough to contrast 2014 with 2023. Millions have bank accounts for the first time, with deposits north of Rs 2 trillion. Some have brand-new pucca houses and toilets, gas connections, piped water, power and health insurance. They can see highways that didn’t exist ten years ago, zip through tolls with fastag, access high-speed internet in remote locations, use UPI instead of queuing up at banks, hand over household waste to garbage trucks — and they can dream. Because Modi has convinced them that ‘Viksit Bharat’ is not just attainable, but inevitable.
The Congress cannot fault Modi on tax reforms (GST and faceless assessment), on India Stack, on the semiconductor mission, on space sector reforms or any one of a score of schemes across sectors.
If it cannot attack his ‘niti’, questioning his ‘niyat’ is fruitless.
To convert voter fatigue into votes, the Congress must have something to say, other than counterproductive ad hominem attacks on Modi. Manipur fell into the Congress lap like manna from heaven, but alas, they failed to make a meal of it. In 2004, the party had plenty of electoral fodder — the US 64 and Kisan Vikas Patra scams, the agrarian crisis, unemployment and the poor status of women. As of now, it doesn’t seem to have any substantive issue around which it can build the 2024 campaign.
One way out for the Opposition might be to focus on state-level rather than national issues, thereby taking Modi out of the equation. The BJP’s advantage lies in a Modi vs Gandhi, stable government vs anarchy narrative. Because vis-a-vis Modi, the Congress is currently “full of sound and fury, signifying nothing”.
Bhavdeep Kang is a senior journalist with 35 years of experience in working with major newspapers and magazines. She is now an independent writer and author
