What explains the Congress-BJP fracas over Rahul Gandhi?

One has to understand that shutting up and sitting at home is no longer an option for the Congress. It is engaged in a battle for survival

Whether Congress leader Rahul Gandhi will be expelled or suspended from the Lok Sabha remains uncertain. What is evident, however, is that it is the Treasury benches that are preventing the Parliament from functioning with their belligerent protest against his statements in the UK about the state of Indian democracy. Prime Minister Narendra Modi's attack on Rahul Gandhi in forums outside Parliament is clearly encouraging his party to continue to be combative on the issue.

The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) cites the cash-for-questions scandal as a precedent to expel him. In 2005, Parliament decided to expel 11 MPs – 10 from Lok Sabha and one from the Rajya Sabha – for bringing disrepute to the House after they were found guilty of accepting cash for asking questions in Parliament. Six of the guilty MPs were from the BJP. The party's representative in the special committee set up by the Lok Sabha, V K Malhotra, had opposed the expulsion, and the BJP had walked out of the Lok Sabha, describing it as the action of a "kangaroo court".

If the BJP wants to set up a special committee to examine the alleged misdemeanours of Rahul Gandhi through a similar "kangaroo court" now, it can do so through a resolution of the House. The Privileges Committee of the Lok Sabha is already seized of Rahul Gandhi's speech in the House on February 6 which alleged a connection between the rise of Prime Minister Modi and that of controversial businessman Gautam Adani.

An immediate objective of the BJP and the government is to use parliamentary instrumentalities to prevent Rahul Gandhi from speaking about Adani in Parliament. In the long term, the action against him might contribute to the BJP's election narrative, to claim that he had been found "guilty" and anti-national by Parliament. However, neither the BJP nor its government may be able to control the fallout of their action entirely.

The Opposition would be polarised except for the outliers who see the Congress as their main challenger in the states. Even if a pre-electoral alliance for the 2024 general election does not materialise immediately, they would be encouraged to stick together because of the realisation that the BJP is willing to go to any extent, however capriciously, to target its adversaries.

On the other hand, the impact on the Congress party could re-energise it. The Congress, by its nature, is a reactive party – it responds to external stimuli. The targeting of Rahul Gandhi would achieve precisely that. Just as his Bharat Jodo Yatra had revived its regional structures, his perceived persecution could once again breathe new vitality into them.

The two messages that seem to have gone home to the Congress are that Rahul Gandhi is the only Congress leader who can attract the masses; and secondly, that he does not compromise on defending the inclusive and secular ideals enshrined in the Indian Constitution, reflected in his consistently sharp attack on the BJP. Once these two basic truths have been established, the rest of the political narrative being constructed by the BJP will not matter to the Congress worker.

Those who claim that the Congress leader should not have spoken critically about Indian democracy in the UK should understand that shutting up and sitting at home is no longer an option for the Congress. It is engaged in a battle for survival. Regardless of its content, the BJP would have reacted sharply to whatever Rahul Gandhi had said. Its propaganda machine was bound to re-fit it into another narrative that suited the party.

Thus, for example, the Delhi Police has also issued a notice to Rahul Gandhi seeking details of the sexual assault victims he claimed to have met during the Bharat Jodo Yatra. Against the explicit wishes of the women who confided in him, the police want Rahul Gandhi to identify these women so that they can ostensibly provide them with security and book the offenders. It is a moot question whether what the women reported in different states of India even falls within the jurisdiction of the Delhi Police (controlled by the Union Home Ministry). The sole purpose seems to be to put him on the defensive over every statement.

One might also ask whether all victims of sexual assault in BJP-ruled states- especially when BJP leaders have been the alleged perpetrators – have been provided security by the police. A study published in 2019 by the Association for Democratic Rights (ADR) showed that the BJP had the greatest number of MPs and MLAs with cases of crimes against women registered against them. Of these, 30 per cent faced serious charges such as rape, kidnapping and murder. Were their victims provided adequate security by the Delhi Police or any other police force? In fact, the father of a gang rape victim in Hathras, Uttar Pradesh, was allegedly shot dead by an accused out on bail. If the Congress party were to compile a list of all the sexual harassment and rape victims just from the BJP-ruled states and forward it to Delhi Police for action, one wonders what the government's reaction would be. Such eccentric police action, aimed at harassing political opponents, can, in fact, backfire on the BJP.

The potential expulsion or suspension of Rahul Gandhi from the Lok Sabha may repeat the October 3, 1977, moment for the BJP when the Morarji Desai government arrested Indira Gandhi on the charges of corruption. While Desai was not keen on the arrest, arguing that action must be taken only according to the law, his home minister Charan Singh and industry minister George Fernandes were joined by foreign minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee and information minister L K Advani enthusiastically pressing for an early arrest. It was a political bungle that led to the revival of the electoral fortunes of Indira Gandhi and the Congress. Perhaps the BJP should seek its "margdarshak" Advani's advice before expelling or suspending Rahul Gandhi from Parliament.

Disclaimer: These are the personal opinions of the writer. They do not reflect the views of www.business-standard.com or the Business Standard newspaper