 |
Only a dimwit would be fooled about the real objective of the Jaipur Shivir. The entire charade was enacted to serenade the Congress’s not-so-young Prince. All else was peripheral to the exercise. Mani Shankar Aiyar, who otherwise makes much to-do about being a modern intellectual, did not see anything wrong in beseeching Rahul Gandhi to take his `rightful place’ at the head of the party.
Another Oxbridge type, Salman Khurshid, did not want to be left behind, proclaiming that Rahul was his leader too. How aside from the fact of his birth in the Gandhi family had he qualified to lead the Grand Old Party with a glorious tradition was not explained. The unsaid reason for such demeaning adulation of someone who has so far failed to distinguish himself in any field of human activity was that the entire sycophantic lot felt that he could still be a vote-getter. However, Rahul Gandhi’s record in several state elections has duly proved that he is no vote-catcher. Maybe the other reason which made seemingly intelligent Congressmen such as Aiyar behave like unthinking supplicants was that they believed that only a member of the Gandhi family could hold the party together. Whatever the reason, the orchestrated show in Jaipur meant to sanctify the fait accompli of the Gandhi scion taking over the reins of the party from his mother in the near future. That limited goal overshadowed any ~chintan~ the party leaders might have done about the grave social, political and economic problems confronting the country. In the backdrop of the recent public outrage over the gang rape of a Delhi girl, and Narendra Modi’s harnessing of the urban youth to foster a vibrant Gujarat, Sonia Gandhi, in her scripted speech, paid homage to the urban middleclass, noting that its concerns could no longer be neglected. Belatedly, the Congress had woken up to the fact that the urban and semi-urban middle class now constituted nearly a third of the electorate. Not long ago, the Congress Party had treated this section of the electorate with utter disdain, believing that either it did not vote or, if it did, it voted for the non-Congress parties. Traditionally, the party had relied on the illiterate and economically backward masses for winning elections. The change in demographics, and the faster rate of urbanization, particularly post-liberalization, have forced a rethink in the Congress Party. Notably, the 2009 Lok Sabha poll was unusual in the sense that for the first time the Congress Party had pipped the BJP in a large number of urban constituencies, a feat credited to the sober and un-Congress-like appeal of Manmohan Singh.
With Singh having become a liability due to his do-nothing approach towards governance, even as his colleagues loot the national treasury, the Congress fears a wipeout in the urban areas in the coming polls. The prolonged protests triggered by the gang rape in Delhi seem to have jolted it out of its complacency. But by merely saying that the urban middleclass was fed up with corruption scams and that the `aam aadmi’ faced corruption in his dealings with governments at every level, the Congress President was following a well-worn formula. Even though she was the final arbiter of the Congress-led governments at the centre and in the states, the old ploy to distance the Gandhis from the negative fallout was meant to insulate them from any blame the people might heap on them. Again, thanks to the deepening of the democratic process and the growth of the mass media, political literacy has grown tremendously in recent years. It is no longer possible to credit the Gandhis for anything good the government might do and blame others for its failures. People are no longer so gullible.
Shorn of the gloss, the Chintan Shivir also reflected the growing concern in the leadership about its slipping popularity graph in a year when the party is set to face elections in as many as nine states and one union territory. And next year there will be the Lok Sabha poll. Given its terrible record in governance, it is natural for the Congress to be mighty concerned about its prospects, regardless of the unsettled leadership in the BJP. The Congress might also feel wary wheeling out Rahul Gandhi, when in all likelihood, the BJP will field Narendra Modi as one of its chief campaigners. For, no two politicians could be more unlike each other. The only thing going for Gandhi is his birth in the Family; in the case of Modi that is the least important part of his CV. His image as a doer, as a forceful orator, as a great catalyst for the industrialization of Gujarat beats the blankness of Rahul’s CV. This must worry all those sycophants, including that rabid Shiv Sainik-turned-rabid-Congressman Sanjay Nirupam. The ~Chintan Shivir~, in the final analysis, was about the party’s ~chinta~ about its sinking public stock. We do not see how it can be boosted given the huge mess on the economic front as well.
Source : The Free Press Journal
