Ability to fund the campaign from his or her personal resources has been a criterion in allocation of Congress tickets.
A day after Rahul Gandhi’s entourage, travelling in three different chartered flights, landed in Fursatganj airstrip prior to his filing nomination for the Rae Bareli seat, the Congress candidate in Odisha’s Puri, Sucharita Mohanty, withdrew from the contest citing lack of party funds. Apparently while lavishly spending money on Rahul Gandhi’s Yatras and hiring chartered flights for his travels the party expects its “ordinary” candidates to fund their elections themselves.
Sucharita Mohanty, a working journalist and political activist, honestly stated that she had tried to crowd source funds by uploading a QR code but the money she collected was not enough to meet poll expenses.
Ability to fund the campaign from his or her personal resources has been a criterion in allocation of Congress tickets. As a result, tickets were given to some candidates who were vulnerable to pressure. Apart from Puri, party candidates in Surat, Indore and Ahmedabad East have cried off from the contest so far.
That perhaps explains why the mantle fell on the shoulders of Gandhi family loyalist Kishori Lal Sharma to fight against Smriti Irani in Amethi after Rahul Gandhi, a three-term MP from the seat, who lost to her in 2019, opted for discretion and shifted to Rae Bareli, shying away from the valour of trying to wrest his traditional seat back from Ms Irani. Congress did not wish to face the embarrassment of offering a cakewalk to her in case the Amethi candidate too decided to follow the example of Surat or Indore.
Congress is contesting in fewer than 350 seats—the lowest ever number for this erstwhile Numero Uno national party. Rahul Gandhi, who entered Lok Sabha from Wayanad in 2019 while being rejected in Amethi, is the only candidate in 2024 who is seeking elections from two seats. And in this endeavour the Election Commission’s seven-phase poll schedule has been helpful. Wayanad voted on 26 April, oblivious that Rahul Gandhi had plans to seek fortunes elsewhere, his proclamation that Wayanad was his “home” notwithstanding. The nomination process for Rae Bareli and Amethi began after Wayanad polling was over. The charge that Election Commission is skewed against Opposition has been demolished by Rahul Gandhi’s “strategic” move, which enables him to perhaps be elected from two seats, with the option of vacating one after the elections.
Congress sees Rahul’s Rae Bareli candidature as a strategic move. There was pressure from Congress party’s dominant ally in Uttar Pradesh, Samajwadi Party (SP) that a member of the Gandhi family should contest from this state. SP workers were seen around Rahul when he filed his papers on 3 May but there was no trace of Akhilesh Yadav anywhere near Amethi or Rae Bareli. Rahul’s nomination was a lacklustre affair as compared to the similar event in Wayanad, where UDF allies surrounded him as he approached the returning officer’s podium. In Rae Bareli, the district magistrate had to repeat the process of accepting his papers as no one was around him when he initially approached her. Later Sonia Gandhi, Mallikarjun Kharge, Robert and Priyanka Vadra stood with him, enabling photographers to capture the event. No senior Congress leader or a representative of I.N.D.I Alliance parties was visible. Akhilesh, while being in I.N.D.I Alliance, is primarily interested in promoting his Pichhda Dalit Alliance (PDA).
Congress is the junior partner of I.N.D.I Alliance in UP, where SP is dominant. In Bihar, RJD calls the shots. JMM in Jharkhand. AAP in Punjab and Delhi, DMK in Tamil Nadu, Shiv Sena (UBT) and NCP (SCP) in Maharashtra similarly make Congress a junior alliance partner in those states. For the first time not only Congress is contesting the least number of seats, but is also a junior partner in many states. In West Bengal, its national ally Trinamool Congress treats it as pariah. In Kerala, it is pitted against its I.N.D.I.A bloc ally, the Left parties.
Congress under Kharge and Rahul, however, are also creating history of sorts in 2024. In Madhya Pradesh’s Khajuraho, the seat was left in alliance adjustment to SP. The nomination of SP candidate was not found in order and rejected. As Congress had not put up a contingency cover candidate (who could have stepped in if the main candidate’s papers are rejected) the I.N.D.I Alliance has now extended support to a candidate of All India Forward Bloc—the party formed by Netaji Subhas Bose when he split away from Congress in 1939. This is the first ever occasion in 85 years when Congress and Forward Bloc (a constituent of Left Front) are standing together.
While Congress workers in Madhya Pradesh have not reacted adversely to the alliance with Forward Bloc, the alliance in Delhi and Punjab with Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) has been the trigger for exits. The resignation of the Delhi Pradesh Congress Committee chief, Arvinder Singh Lovely, who was a minister in the Sheila Dikshit government in the National Capital Territory, which AAP ousted by its agitation, is a case in point. Lovely categorically stated that he was chagrined by the Congress party’s alliance with AAP, which he described as “a party which was formed on the sole basis of levelling false, fabricated and malicious corruption charges against the Congress”.
By opting out of Amethi and seeking the warmth of family bastion Rae Bareli, Rahul Gandhi may have made a “strategic” move to please Akhilesh Yadav. But the morale of his party is waning and that is evident from desertions. In states like Madhya Pradesh, BJP had to organise special camps to accommodate the defectors. A national general secretary of BJP, Vinod Tawde, has been made in charge of the screening committee, which vets new entrants from Congress.
The message of Rahul Gandhi yielding ground to Smriti Irani perhaps is an important straw in the wind blowing through the scorched countryside this summer.