Choking election funds for the Congress

While the Congress party has been allowed to operate its account, the ITAT has put a lien of Rs 115 crore on its accounts. It has been allowed to spend only from the remainder

Armies march on their stomachs, and electoral battles are fought on the ability to spend resources. If their funding is choked, political parties will not find anyone even to stick their election posters.

No one knows this better than Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).

The demonetisation of large denomination bank notes in November 2016, just a few months preceding the Uttar Pradesh state elections in early February 2017, virtually emptied overnight, the war chests of the BJP's rivals from which they have never recovered. Whatever its other intended outcomes, demonetisation gave a comparative advantage to the BJP in UP in 2017.
 

The sudden "freezing" of the Congress party's accounts will have the same effect. Political observers will see its objective as cutting off the "supply line" for the Congress in the upcoming general election.

It is uncanny that several separate income tax cases from 2018-19 have surfaced in unison after five years. The accounts of the Congress party, the Indian Youth Congress and the Delhi Pradesh Congress Committee have been frozen by the Income Tax Department in concerted action.

While the Income-Tax Appellate Tribunal has allowed the Congress to operate its accounts pending a hearing, it has put a lien on Rs 115 crore on its accounts. It has directed that the party may spend only from the remaining amount. However, party Treasurer Ajay Maken says there is no "remaining amount" in the party's current account.

Why has the government decided to act now?

Prime Minister Narendra Modi claimed in the Budget session of Parliament that the third term of the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) was "not far away". He predicted 370 seats for the BJP and more than 400 seats for the NDA in the upcoming general election. That boast is now an election slogan, "Abki Baar NDA Sarkar 400 Paar".

Nevertheless, political circles are abuzz with a dipstick survey by the BJP, which now gives it only 252 seats. The veracity of this opinion poll is unclear.

A clearer picture emerges from India Today's Mood of the Nation survey conducted between December 15, 2023, and January 28, 2024 – a period encompassing the Ram Mandir inauguration and the moment when the weathervane of opportunism turned, and Nitish Kumar joined the NDA. It projected the BJP to win 304 seats. Although this was the perception when the BJP's image peaked, the survey also showed the Congress seats increasing by 19, upping its tally to 71 seats.

With ten years of anti-incumbency, every seat counts for the BJP. Freezing the bank accounts of the Congress would create a sense of hopelessness in the party, prompting desertion by those impatient for the fruits of office or under pressure from government agencies. As the party in ascendance, the BJP is the default choice of the defectors.

The BJP knows that however weak, the Congress is the only party capable of challenging it in states that are its core strength. The regional parties -- ranging from the Trinamool Congress in West Bengal to the DMK in Tamil Nadu can thwart the BJP only in the individual states they control.

Only the Congress can challenge the BJP in states that account for nearly 200 Lok Sabha seats. They include Gujarat, Karnataka, Maharashtra, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, Delhi and Uttarakhand. In some of these states, the Congress is so weak today that its very survival is in question. However, a recovery in any of the core states in the near future poses a threat to the BJP.

Currently, the BJP's focus is to meet the challenge of the regional parties. However, it cannot afford any disturbance in its pocket boroughs. The India Today survey points precisely to that possibility by showing improvement in the Congress tally. The Congress will, therefore, remain the obsessive focus of the BJP, even in its weakened avatar.

This concern explains the BJP's repeated attempts to split the Congress in these states. Although the prime minister likes to claim that Congressmen are leaving the party because it is "trapped in a vicious cycle of dynastic politics", the defectors to the BJP are mainly leaders who have the sword of government agencies dangling over them.

A prominent Congressman who recently left the party in Maharashtra and was involved in a questionable housing project is believed to have told the Congress party leadership that he had no other option but to join the BJP. He claimed that, at his age, he could not face the prospect of prison. Some more departures are imminent.

Three more Maharashtra Congress leaders are queuing up at the departure gate, as is the Kamal Nath family in Madhya Pradesh. The Congress would have split in Bihar on the eve of Nitish Kumar's vote of confidence, and the threat persists. A narrative is being created that the Congress is a sinking ship.

Is it entirely fortuitous that the action against the Congress party by the Income Tax Department has come just a day after the Supreme Court ruled that the government's scheme of election funding through anonymous electoral bonds was "unconstitutional and manifestly arbitrary"? According to the lead judgement, the anonymous electoral bonds scheme authorised the "unrestrained influence of corporates in the electoral process."

Despite the blow to the government's reputation, it can do little against the Supreme Court with the general election knocking at its door. However, it can act to limit access to funding of its political adversaries, as it has.

The Congress party was not itself the main petitioner challenging the electoral bonds scheme. However, one of its women leaders, Jaya Thakur, was a petitioner with the Association for Democratic Rights and others. The action against the Congress, which has been at the forefront of the charges of cronyism in the BJP government, has to be understood against this legal setback to the Modi government. Perhaps it hopes that judicial scrutiny will also make its main political adversary look bad.