By Sushil Kutty
The swing goes high in the air, and then scrapes bottom. That’s the Congress! Rahul Gandhi should step out of his bungalow and take a reckoning. The Congress isn’t in the best of sorts in any of the directions, East, West, North, South.
The Congress lost Haryana under Rahul’s watch. And now, the man’s accusing the BJP after staying incommunicado for long hours. This is not done, not now and not in the hereinafter. Somebody should tell Rahul Gandhi it’s time he pulled up his socks.
The Gandhi family is the only hope for the Congress. It was so before the Haryana election and it is so in the now and thereafter. Some Gandhi family dis-loyalists maybe questioning Rahul Gandhi. Where’s he, the ocean did not swallow him. Did the humiliation of the Haryana debacle send him into hiding? For how long?
Good politicians, sincere politicians thank their voters with a smile and a dimple to boot. LoP Rahul Gandhi should avoid going missing, if he cannot look downcast.
The Gandhi family could do with a vacation. Immigration at the airport will not stop them, ask awkward questions just because Prime Minister Narendra Modi tells a cock and bull story of conspiracy theories, alluding to Rahul Gandhi and hanky-panky. Hello, not everybody is an Arnab Goswami. Who sees promise in conspiracy theories to deal a death blow to perceived Gandhi Family hegemony.
So Rahul Gandhi signed some document nobody had a clue about? It might point to hanky-panky, but Xi Jinping was there in the picture, and Sonia Gandhi, too. No mother will stand still and let the son sign a sticky deal. If only there was no such picture!
The picture of Rahul Gandhi signing a Chinese-origin document with Sonia Gandhi behind him and Xi Jinping towering over him nails the Gandhi family name, says the Republic. Prime Minister Narendra Modi shouldn’t be the source of conspiracy theories if he does not have the wherewithal to prove Rahul Gandhi’s guilt in efforts to pull down the government. It is “innocent till proven guilty” and not “guilty until not proven innocent.”
Only tinpot dictators indulge in such talk; spout conspiracy theories. Prime Minister Narendra Modi isn’t tinpot nor dictator, or is he? These are odd times. The Congress is getting a right royal drubbing. Haryana was there for the taking, and yet! Rahul Gandhi lost face, which is a very Chinese way of putting out things. Rahul Gandhi lost standing with the Haryana debacle is more like it. In J&K, too, the Congress didn’t end up on Cloud 9. And now Congress’ INDI-Alliance buddies are losing their patience with Rahul Gandhi.
The Samajwadi Party on October 9, 2024 went ahead and declared the names of its candidates for six out of 10 constituencies in Uttar Pradesh where there will be bypolls before the year is out to usher in a new year. Akhilesh Yadav’s party named its candidates without consulting its so-called ally, the Congress.
And, then the SP doubled down, saying the SP candidates were chosen keeping in mind the ‘PDA’ (Pichada, Dalit, and Alpasankhyak). Akhilesh Yadav hopes to be Prime Minister one day and he believes he has the backing of backward classes, Dalits and minorities. All six SP candidates are ‘PDA’ and includes Ajeet Prasad, the son of Awdesh Prasad, who is the Lok Sabha MP from Faizabad and whom Akhilesh Yadav called the ‘Raja of Ayodhya!’
Another candidate is Akhilesh Yadav’s cousin Tej Pratap Singh Yadav. Of the six, two are Muslim, three “backward” and one Dalit. The Congress is a partner of the Samajwadi Party in the INDI-Alliance. The Congress leadership hasn’t so far spoken about “seat-sharing” with the Samajwadi Party. The INDI-Alliance has a coordination committee and this panel will take up the case of seat-sharing with the Samajwadi Party.
Life, they say, is a b*tch. Rahul Gandhi with his English and American education will know this. The Congress isn’t going to take free-wheeling on seat-sharing lying down. The central leadership will take a call. The Congress also plans to hold meetings in each of the 10 bypoll seats.
But after the Haryana result, the Samajwadi Party doesn’t give the Congress even a wafer-thin chance to win the UP bypolls. The Congress used to be “grand”, but isn’t grand by any stretch of the imagination anymore. Rahul Gandhi might have been born with a golden spoon, but he wasn’t born to be a politician.
That said, the Congress will stick with Rahul Gandhi from here to eternity, but why would the Samajwadi Party or the Shiv Sena (UBT)? More than likely, Uddhav Thackeray will choose to ignore the Congress while looking up to NCP (Sharadchandra Pawar).
If the Samajwadi Party and the Congress end up squabbling, the UP bypolls in each of the 10 seats will see a hell of a fight. That said, pre-empting the Congress is not a friendly move. The Congress’ role in the INDI-Alliance has shrunk after the Haryana loss. The dates for the UP bypolls haven’t yet been announced but friction between the Congress and other INDI-Alliance parties will not wait.
The Samajwadi Party’s (SP) decision to name six candidates for the upcoming byelections in Uttar Pradesh without consulting the Congress goes against the coalition dharma, and it has raised questions on the Congress’s standing in the INDI-Alliance.
This growing friction between the two key allies will shake up the alliance. The UP bypolls will become that much tougher for both parties, the Congress and the Samajwadi Party.
The electoral setback for the Congress has weakened the party’s bargaining power within the alliance. The Congress has never played a great coalition game, and has been in a secondary role, always playing second fiddle to regional parties, like in Uttar Pradesh. (IPA Service)
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