Congress must focus on politics, not polemics

As a student of politics, I am baffled by how Congress seems to be thinking these days. The June 2024 judgment appeared to be a moment of repair and rebuilding for the party. And it could rightly take satisfaction from the fact that the opposition had dragged the Narendra Modi-led Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) below the majority mark.

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Take Rahul Gandhi’s comments when the new party headquarters was unveiled. If the Leader of the Opposition had framed his allegations of institutional capture as a confrontation with the Modi government, no eyebrows would have been raised. That he described the fight as a fight with the Indian state was a clear political fumble. Media headlines, social media posts, debates and counter-accusations followed. The BJP feasted on the stumble and the Congress had to defend itself for its choice of words. Such time and space could have been used to actually challenge the government on jobs, the economy and taxes. Or on education and health services.

Rahul Gandhi was also locked in a heated and head-on argument with Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) chief Mohan Bhagwat for describing Ram Mandir day as a day of true independence and August 15, 1947 as a moment of political independence. He raised the bar by arguing that Bhagwat should be tried for treason. Once again there were loud headlines across the stock market.

Once again, the time and focus spent on this was a political waste. The Congress bagged zero seats in the 2015 and 2020 Delhi Assembly elections. And in the 2020 elections, party candidates in 63 of the 66 seats contested by the Congress lost their security deposits. Congressional time should be spent growing organizational roots rather than polemical spats. And if the Congress thinks it has no worthwhile prospects in this election, it might as well have sat them out and gone with Arvind Kejriwal.

Kejriwal and his Aam Aadmi Party, on the other hand, are running a very different rhetorical campaign from that led by Rahul Gandhi. Kejriwal deftly avoids any sort of ideological debate with the BJP. If anything, schemes like the one he just announced for temple priests are clearly tactical moves to woo the Hindu vote. He has managed to do so without antagonizing large sections of the Muslim electorate because he remains an antagonist of the BJP and the Prime Minister. But mostly his focus remains on issues of development, governance and welfare schemes.

Kejriwal is probably fighting the toughest political battle of his career this time. He has to deal with twin PR problems – his arrest in the Delhi fraud scam and the negative perception of the extravagant spending on his house, which the BJP has dubbed sheesh mahal. Still, he has hunkered down and worked in the fields since he was released from prison.

By taking him on, the BJP, which has not won an election to the Delhi Assembly since 1998 (though it has swept three consecutive Lok Sabha elections since 2014 by a margin of 7-0) has also made a confusing choice. It has not been able to create a face to take on Kejriwal who can also capture the wider imagination of the public. Murmurs that Smriti Irani would make a wild card foray into the Delhi battlefield have yet to show any signs of materializing. The BJP is likely hoping for a repeat of its Haryana show by falling back on its organizational machinery in the absence of a strong individual candidate. But it appears to be a tactical error.

That said, the BJP can afford more mistakes than the Congress.

Rahul Gandhi’s other pet issue – the allegations surrounding the Adani Group – also took a beating this week with Hindenburg, the short seller who first made the allegations, announcing a decision to close shop. In any case, his own allies and chief ministers have never seemed particularly enamored of the issue. And the average voter probably doesn’t think it makes a difference to her life. This brings us to what the military strategist Sun Tzu warned about in The Art of War: “He will win, who knows when he will fight and when he will not fight.”

Congress has every right to defend its ideology. But without political power it cannot appeal to anyone other than the already converted. It needs to pick its battles better.

Barkha Dutt is an award-winning journalist and author. The views are personal