Sunil Gatade | As BJP Targets ‘Regionals’, Can Cong Get Act Together?

The Assembly polls in four states and one Union territory again showed how the BJP was turning into the tormentor of India’s regional parties, seeking to virtually wipe out one after another, friends or foes alike.

If Lalu Prasad Yadav’s RJD became the cannon fodder in the Bihar polls, Mamata Banerjee’s Trinamul Congress is the victim in the bitterly fought West Bengal elections, with local BJP leaders quite openly saying that they will take “sab ka hisab”, a chilling thought indeed.

The gunning down of the PA of the BJP’s new chief minister, Suvendu Adhikari, is an ominous development in an uneasy Kolkata, where local TMC leaders are increasingly being subjected to attacks while Muslim-dominated areas are witnessing “Jai Shri Ram” chants.

The BJP’s game plan is quite simple. It neither bothers much about the regional parties nor talks much about them. Its assessment, which has proved right so far, is that despite being set up for genuine regional causes, these parties have slowly degenerated into fiefdoms of their leaders, who have only self-interest in mind.

Interestingly, the ruling party has not taken its gaze off the Congress Party. This could be gauged from the fact that it made mincemeat of the Grand Old Party in Assam, where Rahul Gandhi had expected it to win. It finally secured only 20 out of 126 seats.

Even before Narendra Modi became India’s Prime Minister in 2014, his one-point agenda was and is to attack the Congress, day in and day out, may it be in Parliament or outside and whether it suits the occasion or not. The alleged omissions and commissions of the Grand Old Party are keeping the country down, or so went his refrain.

At such a point, the obvious question is to ask why Congress is not being seen to be active in the field and why it has failed to score goals electorally in the past 11 years or more.

It’s not that Rahul Gandhi is not trying, but the problem with him is that he wants things done his own way. Leading a political party, especially an Opposition one, calls for tact, toil, and tolerance on the part of the leadership.

A Bharat Jodo Yatra and the subsequent exercise are certainly commendable, but they cannot take the place of building the organisation, which is a long-haul project.

The tragedy is that the Congress has not done a serious soul-searching exercise to generate fresh ideas since May 2014, when it not only lost power to the BJP but was also reduced to the pathetic state of 44 seats in the 543-member Lok Sabha, the nadir for a party, which had led India in the Independence period and for decades after that. There might have been some cosmetic exercises here or there but, they don’t take the party anywhere.

This is proving to be a stumbling block in the Congress journey ahead at a time when the Prime Minister as well as home minister Amit Shah are doing everything to further the footprint of the world’s largest party from panchayats to Parliament.

The BJP was earlier a very different party under Atal Behari Vajpayee and L.K. Advani. There was a time that Vajpayee resigned as Prime Minister after his government lost by just one vote in Parliament. Now the party just hates to lose any election and takes it more than an insult. The Congress-mukt Bharat campaign tells its own story.

What is difficult for the Congress to handle is the disruption caused by the BJP by blatantly advocating the line of Hindu majoritarianism, unmindful of the fact that experts, time and again, have cautioned that it does not go well with the Constitution of India, which promises equal respect to all religions.

West Bengal BJP leader Suvendu Adhikari’s public assertion that he will work only for Hindus as they have voted for him, shows that the communal overtones are increasing in contemporary India.

The Congress and other Opposition parties look much the other way and hardly speak over issues concerning the minorities is itself a telling commentary about their fear of losing the majority vote.

In fact, all the Opposition parties have failed to take the bull by the horn since the BJP is on the ascendent. This ostrich-type attitude has emboldened the world’s largest party.

Rahul Gandhi’s claim that the mandate in West Bengal and Assam has been “stolen” is not entirely wrong given the fact that the entire Opposition was ranged against the controversial Special Intensive Revision pushed by CEC Gyanesh Kumar, who has emerged as the blue-eyed boy of the powers that be.

Besides, what is being slowly and surely witnessed is the withering away of the INDIA bloc, with the regional parties losing steam. It is a golden opportunity for the Congress to get its house in order.

But for that, the Congress has to resolve several ideological and organisational issues and fix accountability in a party that is dominated by the first family. It is equally imperative for the leadership to have a dialogue with the grassroots at a time when several imposters are roaming around as party loyalists and benefiting from it.

Kerala, where the Congress has trounced the Left Democratic Front, offers an ideal. The local unit is itself so well-knit that it ensured an easy victory for the party.

It is time for the Congress to rise to the occasion, given the fact that the just-concluded elections have stirred Indian politics like never before and are bound to have a major impact on it in various ways.

The way Mamata Banerjee and M.K. Stalin lost power has sent shockwaves across the Opposition, indicating the fear that the resurgent BJP has instilled among its detractors.

A series of Assembly polls, including in Uttar Pradesh and Gujarat, are scheduled next year, leading to the 2029 Lok Sabha polls. Will Rahul Gandhi, who secured 99 seats in the last Lok Sabha polls, be able to surge ahead in the turbulent scenario is a moot question. Now, the Congress should focus entirely on Uttar Pradesh and Gujarat to make it a fierce fight. Unless the fight is taken into the backyard of Mr Modi and Mr Shah, the BJP's juggernaut cannot be stopped. or halted. It calls for a determined effort and all hands on board.

That may be a tall task for a party which has almost lost its way for quite some time.

The writer is a journalist based in New Delhi