Gandhi scion needs to understand the nation’s changing politics. Targeting Adani, Ambani won’t serve any purpose.
Is former Congress president Rahul Gandhi still not able to understand the changing politics of the country? Are his advisors not allowing him to understand the politics in the right perspective? The apparent “derailment” of the Congress’ strategy during the budget session in Parliament so far suggests so. The focus of the party seems to have diverted from the core issues concerning the people. The grand old party remained focussed only on targeting the government over the Adani issue.
The “Adani-obsession” was such that the Congress MPs could not even present a critical assessment of the President’s address on the floor of the House. What Rahul Gandhi needs to realise is that the strategy of targeting Prime Minister Narendra Modi is weakening the Congress not the BJP. The Gandhi scion had caused material damage to Congress during the last Lok Sabha polls by coining the slogan “Chowkidar chor hai” to target PM Modi over the Rafale deal. A large section of the party was against Rahul Gandhi using this slogan. But he remained adamant to raise it. The result was the massive Congress’ debacle in the 2019 Lok Sabha polls. Rahul Gandhi started blaming party leaders for the defeat, saying they should have made the slogan a big poll campaign. Rahul Gandhi’s resignation from the president post after the defeat in 2019 was beyond everyone’s understanding because the Gandhi scion continued to control the organisation. He is still running the party when a non-Gandhi leader is the president. Mallikarjuna Kharge is the Congress chief, but the Gandhi family continues to enjoy the power of the high command.
Rahul Gandhi may be under the impression that he is raising the issue of corruption by targeting Adani and Ambani. But what he cannot ignore is that the Congress also needs industrialists. Major projects of these industrialists are already in the Congress-ruled states too. So, many in the Congress are not happy with this strategy.
Rahul Gandhi’s advisors organised the “Bharat Jodo Yatra” as part of efforts to improve his image. If crowds were any indicator, the yatra was successful as well. During the yatra, Rahul Gandhi was raising issues like price rise, unemployment, corruption, farmers, etc. But later, he lost his focus. Rahul Gandhi shifted his focus to targeting PM Modi over the Adani issue on the basis of a foreign agency’s report.
Putting up a strong defence, PM Modi also made it a point to remind the nation of “corruptions and scams” that happened during the ten-year rule of the Congress-led UPA government in the past. PM Modi dropped enough hints that the BJP is determined to corner Congress over the issue of corruption in days to come.
However, it is the Rajasthan government’s decision to revive the Old Pension Scheme which PM Modi could not address properly during his reply in Rajya Sabha. Whatever PM Modi said without naming OPS amounted to criticising such schemes. The Congress may capitalise on this issue.
In fact, the employees appointed after 2004 do not get pension as the OPS was scrapped by the BJP-led NDA government. The allegation is that the BJP has been against the interest of employees. The NDA government had not even implemented the Sixth Pay Commission recommendations as well. PM Modi has also refused to set up the Eighth Pay Commission now. It was the Congress-led UP which implemented the Sixth Pay Commission recommendations. Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot took a historical step to revive the OPS in Rajasthan which has now become a big national issue.
The Modi government is not in favour of this scheme. Now it is a big issue that Congress can capitalise on. The Gehlot government has taken several people-friendly decisions that may stand Congress in good stead in the upcoming elections. But it depends on Rahul Gandhi whether he will be able to raise these issues to score over BJP. Analysts believe that the Modi government could be posed a challenge only if Congress raises the issues related to the common man properly. Targeting the government over Adani and Ambani is not going to serve any purpose.