Congress Vice President Rahul Gandhi’s southern sojourn last week could have lifted the sagging spirits of his party leaders in the two Telugu states. But his pep talk to the party and public to throw out the ruling parties in Telangana and Andhra Pradesh has left little impression on the common man because he sounded as confused as ever.
Rahul Gandhi toured three South Indian states, probably his first, in a week starting with Hyderabad on June 1, followed by Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh. Significantly, all the three states are ruled by strong regional parties and Rahul’s visit was aimed at seeking a foothold in Tamil Nadu and a firm footing in the Telugu region. On both counts, the impact of his visit is abysmal.
Though the regional Congress leaders have been gloating over RaGa’s visit, the point they are missing is his target was, once again, Prime Minister Narendra Modi, not K Chandrasekhar Rao or Nara Chandrababu Naidu, Chief Ministers of Telangana and Andhra Pradesh respectively. The reason is strategic: Both the Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS) and Telugu Desam Party (TDP) leaders are cheesed off by BJP chief Amit Shah’s attempts to snipe at the two regional parties to prepare ground for BJP’s victory in 2019 Assembly polls.
Of course, it’s a pipedream, given the popularity of both the parties and BJP’s dismal leadership in the region. Nevertheless, the strange love-hate relationship between BJP and TDP and TRS gives Congress enough space to drive a wedge between the national and regional parties. Who knows what will be the political scenario like two years from now?
Setting his sights firmly on the next Assembly and Parliament polls, Rahul Gandhi appears to have reset his strategy to take on the mighty BJP and its Baahubali Modi on the fictitious character’s home turf itself. At two public meetings in Tirupathi and Guntur, Rahul Gandhi focused on the special status to Andhra Pradesh that was promised before and after the bifurcation in 2014 and how the Modi government has been fooling the people in Andhra Pradesh to deny that status in the name of special package.
But the curious twist RaGa has given to the political issue is religious. Speaking in Tirupathi, he said: “Modi ji talks of Hindu dharma. He says, ‘I am the protector of Hindu dharma’. I want to ask what kind of Hindu he is to break promises made in Tirupathi and say lies to people.”
His straying into Hindu dharma to attack his beta noire in the holy town is grotesque, to say the least. But, in recent days, he is sounding like a born again Hindu. For example, he told party cadre in Chennai on June 4 that he was studying the Upanishads and the Gita, not to get the essence of Hinduism but “to fight the RSS and the BJP.”
How is he going to do it? No clue. But Rahul seems convinced that by invoking the Bhagavad Gita or Upanishads, he could win the hearts and minds of majority Hindu voters in 2019. We don’t know whether it is his own brainwave or misguided advice by his trusted lieutenants after the poll debacle in Uttar Pradesh where the BJP was accused of using caste and religion to win the election.
If the Congress or its most important leader believes that playing a religious card is sure way to gain political power, Rahul is on a pernicious path. For, the professed secular party further alienates the minorities who have already lost faith in the pseudo-secular credentials of Congress. The recent state elections have proved that point. Rahul Gandhi who is expected to become Congress head replacing his mother should first set the house in order before taking Modi head-on. In any case, Modi bashing and personal attacks won’t take Rahul anywhere. If there is any lesson to be learnt from personal vendettas followed by Chief Ministers Nitish Kumar (Bihar) and Arvind Kejriwal (Delhi) against Modi, it is a futile exercise.
