The time has come for Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge to assert himself and make it abundantly clear to all others, including Rahul Gandhi, that unless a particular proposal has his approval, and has been duly endorsed by the Working Committee, it should not be spoken about publicly.
Rahul Gandhi’s call for “jitni Abaadi, Utna Haq” has made many of his party colleagues uncomfortable since the thought is against everything the Congress has stood for in the past, and would lead to complete chaos, if such a doctrine is ever implemented. Senior leader Abhishek Singhvi had come out openly against this thesis and urged everyone to understand the consequences, which would lead to majoritarianism.
However, the eminent lawyer, who has defended the party on multiple occasions, probably under duress or persuasion, deleted his tweet and tried to tone down his opposition to this bizarre and anti-Congress statement. The point is that why should Rahul Gandhi try to set the agenda which does not suit his own party? Is it because those who surround him do not understand the ramifications of such an action and continue to misguide him?
This statement is certainly not consistent with what the Congress has always professed. Rahul’s grandmother, Indira Gandhi and father, Rajiv Gandhi, were opposed to any division of society on the basis of caste and creed. In fact, the party slogan when Indira Gandhi was contesting from Chickmaglur in Karnataka while on a comeback trail, was “Na Jaat pe Na Paat pe, Indiraji ki baat pe, Mohar Lage gi Haath pe”.
The Congress has never ever been in favour of dividing society on caste or community lines and after Rahul called for “Jitni Abaadi, Utna Haq”, Prime Minister Narendra Modi wondered what was the objective of such a statement, since the Hindus were the majority. On one hand, former PM, Manmohan Singh had said that the minorities had the first right over the country’s resources and now Rahul was supporting the opposite view.
The essence of what Rahul is professing is that the minorities will be the losers and as Singhvi said, equal opportunities were not the same as equal outcomes, something which needed to be kept in mind while enunciating such a thesis. Way back in August 1990, the implementation of the Mandal Commission by Vishwanath Pratap Singh, who knew his time was up, had created a lot of social upheaval. Now this demand for a caste census was another move which was needlessly going to create divisions in the country and would lead to complete breakdown of normality.
This kind of thesis may help some regional parties with regional agendas and beliefs. However, the national parties must take a larger view of the subject and thus act in a more responsible manner. In the past whenever there has been a call to divide society on basis of caste, the RSS had tried to push its Hindutva agenda to bring the majority community under its umbrella.
In fact, what Rahul is promoting is very dangerous and he and his advisers must realize that the OBCs have never voted for the Congress but have been vehemently opposed to it, on most occasions. Since the time, Rahul came into active politics, a section of Congress leaders, who had lost their relevance over a period of time, tried to convince him to play the OBC card, since this is where “his future was”, they told him.
In 1990, when Mandal Commission seemed to be dividing the Hindus, Lal Krishna Advani, veteran BJP leader, decided to take out a Somnath to Ayodhya Rath Yatra. The stopping of Yatra by pro-Mandal Lalu Prasad Yadav, led to the BJP withdrawing its support to the V.P. Singh government, and the rest is history.
Rahul’s statement, which does not have the approval of the majority of party leaders, even if most of them are quiet on the issue, should not have been made in the first place. Earlier, when the Mumbai conclave of the Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance took place, Rahul chose to attack Gautam Adani, something which did not have the backing of the rest of the coalition partners. West Bengal Chief Minister, Mamata Banerjee, did question why the Congress on its own was trying to create its own narrative without ascertaining the views of the other stakeholders.
Rahul Gandhi, after the Bharat Jodo Yatra, has had an image makeover and people had started taking him seriously. However, by pursuing a thesis which was at variance with the general belief in his own party, he is deviating both from pragmatic politics and going into a zone he knows little about.
This is where Kharge as the president and custodian of the party’s policies, must step in and distance the Congress from what seem to be Rahul’s “personal views”. The experienced Karnataka leader has tried to shield the Gandhis since he took over, and has made it clear that the Congress was not in the race for Prime Ministership in the forthcoming Parliamentary elections, thus ruling out any possibility of Rahul being projected as the main face against Narendra Modi.
The Congress Working Committee is meeting on Monday and therefore must take a view of what Rahul as the past president of the party has stated. It has to be made clear whether this was the Congress line now or if not, the party must urge Rahul to be more careful before expressing his personal beliefs publicly. Between us.