How Modi is undermined by more than a hug and a wink from Rahul Gandhi

Lacklustre except when insulting opponents, PM Modi came across as a top-class bore in his one-hour soliloquy, reading out a laundry list of his government's achievements, often unsupported by data

Congress President Rahul Gandhi’s intervention in the no-confidence motion against the Narendra Modi government was undoubtedly combative and effective. He spoke extempore and displayed unexpected confidence.

The prime minister’s soliloquy lasted over an hour. Lacklustre except when insulting his opponents, he came across as a top-class bore reading out a laundry list of his government’s achievements, often unsupported by data.

The stage belonged to Rahul Gandhi for once.

He both surprised and enthused his supporters with his performance at a time when most had no high expectations of him as a public speaker. These are not small gains for a party which most people consider to be on a slippery downward slope.

Gandhi’s speech flagged all the important issues that could make for a lively political campaign in the days ahead. He pitted the politics of love, dialogue, inclusiveness and liberalism against one based on hate, monologue, divisiveness and intolerance. He spoke for the people when he criticised the prime minister’s silence over the lynching of the minorities and Dalits, the feteing of murderers by ministers of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and concern over the safety of women.

It required courage to proclaim that he had not an iota of hate for his political adversaries belittling him with the abusive moniker “Pappu” (an ignorant child).

To demonstrate that he belonged to a politics of dialogue he walked across the floor to give the prime minister a hug. It was a daring political gesture matching Modi’s politics of histrionics and he sealed it with a playful wink. Even if momentarily, he held the nation in thrall, leaving Modi temporarily bewildered.

However, his intervention was more than drama. He riled the treasury benches with a frontal attack on the secrecy surrounding the price of the Rafale fighter jet deal with France, pointing to the need for transparency in arms purchases. The cost of the deal, according to Rahul Gandhi, had ballooned from Rs 5.2 billion to Rs 16 billion per aircraft and the government was refusing to explain itself by citing a secrecy clause. An overly agitated Defence Minister Nirmala Sitharaman suggested that the secrecy clause was a carryover of the Rafale deal signed by the Congress in 2008. Expectedly, the French government issued a statement supporting the defence minister.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi speaks in the Lok Sabha on 'no-confidence motion' during the Monsoon Session of Parliament. Photo: PTI

Nevertheless, Gandhi’s question remains perfectly legitimate. How was it that only the confidentiality clause survived in a deal which was negotiated afresh by the new government on every other parameter? This included a surprise decision to purchase an additional 36 aircraft off the shelf.

Rahul Gandhi has ensured that the Rafale issue will continue to dog the Modi government. Whether it becomes the BJP’s Bofors or not remains to be seen. Irrespective of whether there were kickbacks or not, a reasonable doubt about the deal has been sown in the public mind.

And if that were not enough, Gandhi pointed out that most of the 50 per cent offset in the 7.87-billion-euro Rafale deal would go to a company with no prior experience of aircraft manufacture, instead of the state-owned Hindustan Aeronautics Limited. There may be good reasons for not favouring HAL but the persistent charge against Modi of favouring his ‘crony capitalist friends’ was underlined. Gandhi waxed further on the subject of ‘crony capitalism’, questioning the meteoric rise of the business interests of a top BJP leader’s son. These remarks were later expunged by the Speaker.

Did Prime Minister Modi make any gains from allowing the debate on the no-confidence motion which his government had successfully blocked in the last session of Parliament? Perhaps he saw a debate in the House as a means of gauging Opposition unity and assessing the efficacy of his political rhetoric ahead of the Parliamentary election.

Nevertheless, Prime Minister Modi could not hide his political fears. The Congress clearly haunts him despite being reduced to just 48 seats in the current Lok Sabha. It is still a party with a presence in multiple states across the country. It offers direct contest to the BJP in states like Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Gujarat, Maharashtra and Karnataka. He was compelled to deride its leaders by mimicking Sonia Gandhi’s pronunciation (as if he himself speaks ‘propah’ Queen’s English), making fun of Rahul’s playful wink, suggesting that the Congress president had wanted to unseat him rather than hug him and by denigrating the hug as ‘childish’. He also felt obliged to enumerate the past betrayals of the Congress, perhaps to remind the other parties in the Opposition that it should not be trusted.

The Congress is an important challenger to the BJP both programmatically and electorally. It certainly managed to put the Modi government on the back foot in Parliament. The Congress president’s leadership will depend on whether he is able to build on this advantage outside Parliament.

If the vote in the Lok Sabha were a barometer of political alliances, the BJP was the loser. It may have demonstrated that the Opposition is outnumbered in Parliament but with an election due soon these figures provide small solace.

The irony could not have been lost that the no-confidence motion was brought by the Telugu Desam Party, which was its close ally till only four months ago. The Shiv Sena, which has a minister in Modi’s cabinet and rules Maharashtra in alliance with the BJP, decided to absent itself from the vote. Rubbing salt to the BJP’s wounds, Sena’s parliamentary party leader Sanjav Raut told reporters: “There is an element of distrust among people…. We have lost the confidence of people.”

The party’s organ ‘Saamana’, went a step further in echoing a wider public sentiment observing: “Those ruling the country today are butchers, who save animals but kill humans. There is an absolute lack of compassion (in minds of those governing the country)… Winning elections and remaining in power by hook or crook is not democracy. Majority is never permanent. The people are supreme.”

The writer is journalist based in Delhi