The Tharoor Bus Congress missed | Vazhipokkan

The NDA camp is busy spreading the message that 2024 is a done deal with Nitish Kumar switching over sides. The Sangh Parivar is doing its best to turn the tables on the Congress and Rahul Gandhi by raising the question why the grand old party couldn't succeed in keeping its allies intact. Neither the moral degradation of Nitish Kumar, who has put himself for sale, nor the political bankruptcy of the BJP, which is ever ready to redefine opportunism, is questioned. The fact that Modi had no qualms in embracing Nitish, a rank opportunist, immediately after observing  11 days' obeisance to commit himself totally to Lord Rama, is also not challenged. But, Rahul and Congress are questioned. Nobody seems to be asking the significant questions on BJP's morality and ideals in the wake of Nitish quitting the Congress camp. It is a matter of great concern that not only the media but even the non Congress opposition parties also fall over this narrative set by the Parivar.

Prashant Kishor, one of the leading political strategists in the country, observes that the latest move by Nitish has delivered a psychological blow to the I.N.D.I.A alliance. He too seems little concerned about the political morality of both Nitish and BJP. But, the people of Bihar do see through the dirty games played by Nitish &Co. They have ensured that JDU, which had 115 seats in 2010 in the Bihar assembly, is now down with 43 seats. Of course there could now be a counter question on the phenomenal growth of BJP in the Lok Sabha which had only two seats way back in 1984. Part of the answer to this question has been put forth by Suketu Mehta in his book 'This Land is Our Land: An Immigrant's Manifesto': ''A populist is, basically, a gifted storyteller; someone who can tell a false story better.'' Narendra Modi has been the architect of the spectacular growth of BJP. He could be very much in Mehta's mind when he speaks of a populist.

Modi has the skill to sell any story in the Indian market. He has been able to sell stories like demonetisation, bifurcation of J&K, CAA and Covid pandemic to the Indian public  extremely well. BR Chopra, the creator of Mahabharat, the epic serial, would have wholeheartedly appointed Modi as his official script writer, had he been alive today.  Modi will also take up the story of the Uniform Civil Code to ensure victory in the upcoming Lok Sabha elections.

Suketu Mehta tells us vividly in his next sentence how the populists can be tackled: ''And the way to fight them is by telling a true story better.'' That means if the Opposition is serious about halting the Modi juggernaut then it must field a person who can tell the true story better. Only such a leader can capture the mind and imagination of the Indian people. Indira Gandhi was such a leader. She could survive the retaliation of the Indian people in the wake of the emergency and bounce back with a bang in 1980 because she knew how to tell the Indian story much better than her opponents. Her fans even went to the extent to equate her with the nation. The Bank nationalisation, India-Pak war of 1971, Garibi Hatao were all stories beautifully delivered by Indira. If there is one leader whom Modi adores within the heart of his hearts, it should be none other than the daughter of Jawaharlal Nehru.
 

Modi became the ultimate centre of power in 2014. He was an RSS pracharak for 15 years. Then he served BJP at the organisational level for another 15 years. He was the CM of Gujarat for 14 years. He has been the PM of the largest democracy for the last 10 years. There is no other leader in any political party in India, who has got this much political and administrative experience. RSS and BJP should be very much pleased as their investments on Modi have yielded huge returns. BJP's trump card in this Lok Sabha election is neither the Ram temple nor the UCC (Uniform Civil Code).  It's Modi and Modi alone. Hindutva is blowing like a storm that could uproot one and all. But, without Modi at the helm of affairs, the wind may lose its force and go directionless.

The most beautiful aspect of democracy is that there is no ultimate leader as such. No one is infallible and no one is undefeatable in democracy. Modi knows this very well. That is why he is turning the Bharat Ratna into a political tool to mobilize every vote bank in BJP's favour. That is why he is implementing the very schemes introduced by the UPA govt forgetting conveniently that his own party used to call them populist and a drain on the exchequer. Modi &Co do feel threatened by some sort of an insecurity feeling even as they sit comfortably inside one of the most fortified citadels of power in the world. The revolting voices of the jobless youth, the farmers and the minorities should be causing  sleepless nights to the rulers of contemporary India (remember Modi's own statements that he has sleep deficiency.)  

Modi had spectacular road shows in Karnataka and Telangana which went to poll last year. He had similar events in Bengal 3 years back. BJP contested in all these three states projecting Modi as the one and only leader. Still, the party suffered severe setbacks in all the three. The fact is that Modi doesn't have the  magic wand of victory everywhere in the country. Of course, Modi is the supreme leader in the Hindi heartland which determines the road to power in India. The Opposition parties including Congress don't have an alternative face right now to take Modi head on in the cow belt. Kharge, the present president of the Congress, is a leader on his own. But, he doesn't have the charisma to overtake Modi. We can't expect much from a leader who always turns towards Sonia and Rahul before taking any key decisions. Kharge has not proved himself to be a better storyteller than Modi.
 

Rahul Gandhi's best political decision so far has been the one to resign from the Congress President's post in 2019 in the wake of the Lok Sabha election debacle. That was realistic and the right decision at the right moment. Rahul made it crystal clear then that he wanted a non-Nehru family member to lead the Congress. But the caucus around Rahul couldn't digest this move, which they feared would undermine their interests in the party. So, they pressured Sonia to return to the presidency of the party. And Sonia, who has an obsession with the family like Dhritarashatra, gave in. Rahul should have realised the folly behind the game plan of the caucus. But he failed to implement what he really intended. Had he insisted that Congress should have a charismatic leader like Shashi Tharoor to redefine and reinvent the grand old party, the Sangh Parivar would have been stunned to the core  duly reminded of the way Sonia had made them defenseless in 2004 with her classic rejection of the PM post.

The Sangh Parivar had been working on 'Mission Rahul ' mainly focussing on portraying the young leader as 'pappu'. They weaved a story which projected Rahul as the immature, prodigal son of the Nehru Family and Modi as the hardworking, intelligent leader of the masses. Earlier, Indira Gandhi had to suffer a similar kind of humiliation at the hands of the socialists whose leader Lohia called her Goongi Gudia (dumb doll.) But in course of time Indira overcame this label and became the iron lady of India. The Parivar itself bowed before her during the emergency in awe of her glory and power.  Rahul had to wait till the Bharat Jodo Yatra to liberate himself from this ignominy. Bharat Jodo Yatra gave Rahul a new image. It helped him get out of the 'pappu profile.' But, at the same time the yatra catapulted him once again to the centre of the Congress party and thereby to the forefronts of the entire opposition line up. This was what Parivar wanted. And Rahul literally walked into that trap. The victory in the ensuing Karnataka assembly election was projected by the Rahul brigade as the people's stamp of approval of Rahul's leadership. The fact that it was the Siddhu - Sivakumar combo that really led to the fall of the BJP govt was conveniently downplayed.
 

This is a crisis that only the Nehru family can resolve. The family had another opportunity to make Tharoor the president of the Congress in 2022 when there was an election to the top post in the party. Instead, the high command fielded Mallikarjun Kharge as the official candidate and saw to it that Tharoor got defeated. Still, Tharoor received 1,072 votes which was a stunning performance by all means. It should have worked as an eye opener. But, nothing happened. The party got another 'loyalist' as the president and everything was back to square one. Rahul began to enjoy unlimited power within the party without any accountability. Every decision, be it the replacement of Captain Amarinder Charanjit Singh Channi or removing Chennithala from the post of the opposition leader, the final word always belonged to him.

Tharoor is the most appropriate leader within the Congress to be fielded against Modi. The criticism that Tharoor doesn't know North India is nothing but superfluous. Let us adopt the touch stone method propagated by the literary critic Mathew Arnold and juxtapose Tharoor with other dynamic crop of leaders in Congress. DK Sivakumar, Revant Reddy, Bhupesh Baghal and Sachin Pilot have leadership material. But, they don't have the captivating personality of Tharoor.  Charisma coupled with scholarship and mass appeal make Tharoor a phenomenon across the Indian political horizon. Sangh Parivar would have been deprived of their sharpest tool against the Congress namely ' the dynasty politics'  had the high command been wise enough to recognise the calibre of Tharoor.

There was a time when the BJP was untouchable in Indian politics. It could win only two seats in the 1984 Lok Sabha election. That BJP is a thing of the past. Today, BJP is a humongous electoral machine that is fuelled by the deadly cocktail of hindutva and corporate funding. One must also remember the allegation that all constitutional institutions have surrendered to the whims and fancies of the BJP.

The Congress needs someone with extraordinary imagination at the top, if it has to stand face to face with a party like BJP. Someone who could combine the scholarship of Nehru and the steely determination of Indira. The divided opposition is one of the major advantages that Modi and BJP enjoy in the upcoming election. We should not forget that BJP got only 38% of votes in the last Lok Sabha election.  We must also remember that BJP doesn't have a CM in South India. The absence of a united opposition is the real crisis in Indian democracy. Congress should have seen to it that the opposition stands united against Modi and BJP.  But instead of initiating concrete steps to unify the disparate voices Rahul Gandhi has set out on the second phase of Bharat Jodo Yatra at this critical juncture.

There can be no debate about the integrity of Rahul Gandhi. His motivations, intentions and inner purity are undisputable. He has no skeletons in the cupboard. That is why he could take a corporate giant like Adani head on. No 'Pegasus' could scare him. No central agencies have been able to unearth anything critical against him. But the fact is that elections can't be won on a clean image alone. We shouldn't forget that Congress captured power in Kerala under the leadership of K Karunakaran and Oommen Chandy not under VM Sudheeran, who is known as a paragon of virtues. Congress has invested heavily on Rahul Gandhi in recent times. The party spent much time, energy and resources to nurture and promote Rahul. But the returns on this investment have been abysmally low.

Rahul has not been able to put forth a credible counter narrative to that of the BJP. Writer  Shiv Visvanathan made an insightful observation about Rahul Gandhi in 2013. Rahul was taking on Modi for the first time then. Thus wrote Shiv: '' I remember the first time I watched Rahul from close quarters. It was at an IRMA (Institute of Rural Management Anand) meeting in Gujarat. He listened studiously, his body language was respectful, he met all the right people and yet there was something disappointing in the way he spoke. At the age of forty, he gave the speech of an awed twenty-year-old, announcing respectfully that he was the youngest person in the room.''  We cannot but marvel at Shiv's political reading!

Tharoor emerged as the most popular Congress leader in Kerala in the recent surveys conducted by the leading media houses in the state. It is learnt that the surveys conducted by the Congress in Kerala too showed the same result. But, the high command seems unwilling to capitalise on the image of Tharoor since it is not fully 'convinced' of his loyalty towards the Nehru family. It cannot be denied that Tharoor was nominated to the Congress Working Committee and that he was fielded in TVM  Lok Sabha constituency for three consecutive terms and was made a minister in the Manmohan Singh govt. But, it goes without saying that Tharoor deserves these and much more.

The last two Lok Sabha elections have proved that Rahul is no match for Modi. Rahul doesn't possess either the imagination or the political acumen to tackle the BJP led by Modi and Shah. Despite Kharge being the president, the Congress remains wedded to the Nehru family. P Chidambaram, former Minister of Finance, compared Kharge to a mechanic who fixes the nuts and bolts of the organisation. He pointed out that there have always been subtle differences between the leader and the Congress President. The implied message was crystal clear - Rahul remains the de facto Congress  leader.
 

There is only one reason as to why leaders like PC Sing Hosanna to Rahul don't want any radical changes in Congress. They fear that if leaders like Tharoor are elevated to the frontline, their vested interests will be affected. Some people allege that Tharoor doesn't have any experience at the organisational level. They seem to forget the fact that Tharoor led successfully the public information department of the UN, which has offices in 77 countries. We should also remember that Tharoor only built up the Professional Congress, which is now one of the most active platforms within the party. Tharoor has been standing in the way of BJP's ' Mission Kerala' for the last 15 years. If it were someone else BJP would have captured the TVM Lok Sabha constituency by now. Modi rose to power by driving the aspirations of the middle class. If the Congress wants to regain the confidence of the middle class then the high command should be ready to hand over the party leadership to someone like Tharoor.

No rebel, who quit Congress, could deliver an alternative to the grand old party. The history of Congress proves this amply well. Rajaji started the Swatantra party when he fell apart with Nehru. Kamaraj and the syndicate split with Indira Gandhi and formed a party which they claimed was the original Congress. Pawar, Sangma and Tariq Anwar quarelled with Sonia and went on to establish the NCP. K Karunakaran formed a new party in Kerala named 'DIC'. The various versions of Kerala Congress have also their roots in the Congress. GK Moopanar (TN), Mamata (Bengal) and Jagan Mohan Reddy (Andhra) too went on their own to challenge Congress. But none of these leaders could deliver an alternative to Congress at the national level. Tharoor should be knowing this reality. That is why he is trying his best to bring about a subtle change while committing himself thoroughly to the core principles of the Congress. But without the support of the Nehru family no magic can be done within the Congress. Congress missed the Tharoor Bus in 2019. The last 5 years grimly remind the Congress workers of this bitter reality even as Modi seems to be edging towards a hatrick in Indraprastha.