'Rahul Needs To Project Something Positive'

'People don't like leaders who just crib and complain without offering a clear objective.'
'Theoretically and pragmatically, Rahul has to show an agenda beyond bad-mouthing Mr Modi on economic policies, foreign policy...'

"Voters are willing to experiment. If they can vote for Vijay, an actor and sign up for an imaginary Cockroach Janata Party, then why is it that an organised Opposition is unable to get its act together, whether it is the Congress or INDIA Alliance?" asks Rasheed Kidwai, inarguably the country's leading expert on the Congress party and its byzantine politics.

Mr Kidwai has written two books focussed on the party: 24 Akbar Road and Sonia - A Biography and perhaps knows the history of the Congress better than the Congress itself.

In a two-part interview with Rediff's Archana Masih, Rashid Kidwai discusses whether the Congress can counter the BJP's national dominance, its vanishing footprints in the North and North East and why it needs to reach out to Hindus.

The BJP has accused Rahul Gandhi of conspiring to destabilise the Modi government, in response to his remarks at meeting with the Congress Minority Department about the economic crisis leading to a food crisis that the BJP government will not be able to handle.
What do you see as the reason for the renewed, sharper attack from the BJP?

We need to remember that Muslims are bona fide and integral part of Indian society, both Constitutionally and Civilisationally. Whichever paradigm you take, they are part of the national life as a community.

It's against the law to think of them in any other way. This is very elementary.

Any outreach programme is welcoming because democracy is about numbers. If a political party is trying to court 15% of our population, it should be welcomed, just like a Dalit outreach or any outreach to any other community.

But there's also a political side to this. What does Rahul gain from this?

This 14%-15% is already inclined towards the Congress in most parts of the country, so, politically, this outreach is quite futile.

The Congress, in fact, needs to engage with the majority community.

Can you expand on this further?

The BJP's core vote percentage is about 30 per cent and goes up to 34 to 38 per cent. To say that it enjoys 30% of the majority community votes is on the premise that we have a secret ballot. Nobody really knows who's voting for which party. It is an intelligent guess that 30% of Hindus vote for the BJP.

That means that 70% are not voting for the BJP. This is also a challenge for the Opposition, particularly the Congress, Samajwadi Party, Rashtriya Janata Dal, Trinamool Congress, regional parties included, why they are not able to get these anti-BJP votes.

If you talk in the binary of Hindu-Muslims, even 38% Hindu votes do not translate into 50% of the total. Therefore, there are more than 50% voters who belong to the majority community that do not vote for the BJP.

Rahul Gandhi has failed in the last 12 years of the Modi government to reach out in that direction -- in gaining more votes from upper castes, tribal communities and Dalits. They (the Congress) have not been able to target these segments in a targeted, democratic manner.

Therefore, I find this, outreach to the Muslim, a little jarring. You can consolidate the 14% segment, but what about the 78% of Hindu votes in the country?

The Congress should be making a concerted bid not to compromise its ideology, because in the past, a majority of that 78% has voted and brought the Congress to power from 1951 till its first defeat in 1977.

Even in the 1977 defeat, the Congress' vote percentage was very high.

But now it has just 20% of the nation's vote share. If the Congress vote percentage increases to 25% or more, the BJP will not be able to get a majority.

This is the challenge confronting Rahul Gandhi.

One of the things Rahul Gandhi has said that increasing prices and economic distress caused by the West Asia crisis will shift people's thinking from Hindu-Muslim polarisation to issues like food and economic crisis. Is there merit in such a thought?

I would say that is a fallacious and a wrong conclusion. Economic hardship does not necessarily mean that people will shift their voting behaviour.

If we look at the sense of association people have with Mr Narendra Modi, it is quite clear that even setbacks like criticism of handling foreign policy, or concerns about the second wave of Covid do not necessarily erode political support for him.

The classical case is the 2017 Gujarat election when the Congress fought a good campaign and the perception was that the BJP was on the verge of losing power.

Surat, which encountered a lot of economic hardship because of GST implementation, still voted for the BJP.

There are no ifs and buts in history, but if Surat had voted differently, perhaps, the BJP would have lost Gujarat in 2017 itself when Rahul Gandhi was president of the Congress. That would have been a turning point.

This reminds me of the time when Mr Narasimha Rao was prime minister, and there was a lot of disquiet within the Congress about him for various reasons -- corruption, the Babri Masjid demolition etc. But the turning point came in 1995 when the Congress lost the assembly election in Andhra Pradesh.

The party thought Rao was no good when he could not win his own home, in spite of being prime minister. That loss led to Narasimha Rao's downfall.

The present situation is completely different from the era of Narasimha Rao and drawing comparisons with Mr Modi's tenure is not straightforward, but the 2017 Gujarat election was an important reference point.

So the point I'm making is that economic hardships do not necessarily mean that the core voters would be turning away from Mr Modi.

Rahul needs to project something positive. Rahul's narrative of victimhood has a limit. Psychologically, people don't like leaders who just crib and complain.

Look at the flash-in-the-pan online entity called the Cockroach Janata Party. Its presence is only on social media, but look at the number of people who have signed up for an imaginary party.

A substantive and concrete example would be the success of Vijay's TVK, a new political party led by an actor.

So this tells you that people are willing to experiment. If people can vote for an actor and sign up for an imaginary Cockroach Janata Party, then why is it that an organised Opposition is unable to get its act together, whether it is the Congress or INDIA Alliance.

There is no space for the Opposition in terms of numbers, but that these are the areas that should concern Mr Rahul Gandhi.

TVK or Cockroach Janata Party are new phenomena, why would people want to experiment with an old party like the Congress?

Old parties need to repackage themselves.

Look at the electoral success of Rajiv Gandhi -- or even Dr Manmohan Singh in the 2009 election.

If the people of India were unhappy with the remote control arrangement between Sonia Gandhi and Dr Manmohan Singh, why would they give a renewed mandate to the Congress-led UPA in 2009?

In fact, the Congress won a number of urban constituencies in 2009.

It was a positive mandate for the incumbent government.

Theoretically and pragmatically, Rahul has to show an agenda beyond bad-mouthing Mr Modi on economic policies, foreign policy et al.

What is he offering? People always look at the alternative.

For example, Tamil Nadu: The AIADMK-BJP alliance and the DMK-Congress were the two main poles, yet people created a space and voted for a third party.

The two alliances covered a lot of ground among themselves, yet people moved beyond deeply entrenched parties when they did not find a compelling narrative.

This is the political temperament of our nation.

Feature Presentation: Aslam Hunani/Rediff