12 questions for Rahul

What will Rahul Gandhi do differently from Modi/BJP if elected? Here's a list of a dozen short questions

If Rahul Gandhi is the flavour of the political season for adversaries and fans alike, two interesting trends dominate all talk over his future. Both are contradictory.

 

On the one hand, it’s quite remarkable that there’s disagreement between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his mass base over Rahul’s future potential. On the other hand, Rahul and his base are in complete agreement on this subject.

 

The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) followers are dismissive of Rahul. For them, he’s “Pappu”, or an object of derision. Often enough, even senior BJP leaders boast that he’s no threat but their biggest strength. Mr Modi, however, has always held the opposite view. He sees Rahul, and the Gandhis, as the only potential threat.

 

 

That’s why his campaigns are so fixated on Rahul. Even in a state election where the Congress hardly counts, Mr Modi targets him. This week, he also fielded Union Home Minister and BJP “Kautilya” Amit Shah to launch a vicious attack on Rahul. While the base may laugh it away, BJP seniors know who the real threat is. That’s the rare contradiction between the leader and the base.

 

For the Congress, Rahul and his base are unanimous in believing that power is his for the taking, if only elections were fair. Implicit in this is the insinuation that all elections were stolen by the BJP 2019 onwards. First, by “mass-fixing” of Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs), and now with a combination of Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar and his SIR. Just fix these and the next election is yours.

 

Unlike their devoted base, Mr Modi and Mr Shah are realistic about Rahul because they know their politics. Rahul’s followers and Mr Modi agree on one thing, and they’re both right that however consistently Rahul may have faltered in the past, the Congress under him poses the only credible challenge to the BJP.

 

See it this way. From its lowest Lok Sabha tally of 44 seats in 2014 through 52 in 2019 to 99 in 2024, the Congress vote share has been steady in the 19-21 per cent range. That’s one in five Indians instinctively voting for the “hand” symbol. Looking at data from 1996 through 2009, the BJP floated within the 25 per cent ballpark. That’s one in four voters. It was the coalition era.

 

Mr Modi changed that equation in 2014. The BJP has floated in the 37-40 per cent range since. A jump of 12-15 percentage points over the baseline is phenomenal and devastating in a multi-party system. We can safely call this top-up the Modi vote.

 

It’s unrealistic to imagine Rahul taking the Congress vote share to 37 per cent in the foreseeable future. But, if he simply adds another 5-6 per cent to his core vote, national politics changes. He’s been routinely losing 9 out of 10 direct fights against the BJP. You can then presume that most of this vote will come from the BJP in regions it routinely sweeps. The 2024 election was a limited coalition exception. As the Opposition vote consolidated, BJP’s strike rate declined. It won only 7 out of every 10 direct contests against the Congress.

 

A BJP at 32 per cent will still dominate, but its Lok Sabha numbers could fall to low-200s or even below that. It may still form a government, but it will be a genuine National Democratic Alliance coalition, with all the attendant leadership complications.

 

That’s the threat Mr Modi and Mr Shah have never taken lightly. They don’t believe Rahul is their best asset in the Opposition. They know that the Congress, with its one-in-five vote base, is their only challenger. And the Congress, like it or not, can’t stay intact without the Gandhis.

 

Now, the key point: Where does this take Rahul? At this time, he’s totally focused on building the “street” against Mr Modi. He’s willing to partner anybody, from mostly apolitical CJP to hard-Left All India Students’ Association, from Abhijeet Dipke to Neha Bora.

 

Having been through the school of hard knocks since he joined politics in 2004, Rahul should know that political change in India is brought about either by those who win an election, or combine with others to defeat an incumbent. A “regime change” on the streets is an empty hard-Left fantasy because they can never win an election.

 

The combined might of Jayaprakash Narayan (Navnirman Andolan) and George Fernandes (Railway Strike), backed by the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) and Lohiaite street power and armed with that Allahabad High Court order, couldn’t topple Indira Gandhi. They had to wait for the 1977 election. In 2010-12, a dead-in-the-water United Progressive Alliance wasn’t thrown out by the Anna movement and RSS/BJP. It took the 2014 election to settle the issue.

 

The next general election in 2029 will mark 25 years in politics for Rahul. He will still be only 59, young by the standards of Indian politics. But presuming that the Congress and the BJP retain their ideologically frozen vote, Mr Modi’s add-on voters won’t shift to Rahul out of boredom. He has to offer them a better, constructive, optimistic proposition.

 

What will he do differently from Modi/BJP if elected? Let me list just a dozen short questions:

 

• How would he want Election Commissioners to be picked and the impartiality of Election Commission of India restored? Return to the Congress/UPA era isn’t inspiring. His late father had tried in 1989 to weaken the EC by making it a three-member body. Further, how will he ensure that non-citizens (those the BJP has labelled ghuspethiyas) don’t become voters?
• The same for the judiciary, CBI and the other key agencies.
• How will he handle a Trump-like challenge? How will his policy towards the United States be any different?
• What’s his plan to deal with the Chinese? How will his treatment of Pakistan and terrorism emanating from there be different? Softer than Modi’s, or harder?
• How will his approach to West Asia and Israel differ from Modi’s?
• What’s his vision for managing India’s chronic and crippling triple-shortage of energy, capital and gold? We can add AI/software services to this now. How will he make India a magnet for investors?
• Chhatron ki Goonj is resonating. But how will he create more jobs? Further, for the less educated, will he restore MGNREGA, or introduce a “new, improved” version? Will he continue giving away free food grains?
• Is caste Census still his idea of social justice? How will it create more jobs? Revanth Reddy doesn’t know what to do with his caste Census. Will he ask D K Shivakumar to at least release his caste Census data?
• What changes does he plan for the education system to end corruption and profiteering, improve the quality of education, and make the young more employable?
• He says he isn’t anti-business or anti-capital. He just wants no monopoly and a level playing field. How will he ensure that? What’s his concept of economic reform?
• Since he and his “secular” partners complain that the minorities are marginalised, how would he mainstream them?
• And finally, who is, or will be on his team?

 

To look like a credible challenger and not just a street-fighter, Rahul needs to answer these questions and offer voters in the “middle” new ideas. Mr Modi started promising “Achche Din” by late 2012. At about the same distance from 2029, what’s Rahul promising?

 

If he were to think out of the box, he could set up a UK-style shadow Cabinet. His “ministers” could then start answering these questions in their respective domains. Of course, if I were to be only part facetious, it could unleash mighty infighting even for these non-jobs.

 

Whatever Rahul Gandhi chooses, he can’t go into 2029 again riding on his ecosystem’s clamour over Modi’s “falling” popularity. That has failed thrice already. 

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*By special arrangement with ThePrint*