In his latest blog, Union finance minister Arun Jaitley has made a perceptive observation — that if last Saturday’s massive Kolkata rally of the Opposition parties was “anti-Modi”, it was also “non-Rahul”.
Congress president Rahul Gandhi and his mother Sonia weren’t present at the show of strength organised by West Bengal chief minister and Trinamul Congress supremo Mamata Banerjee, and no Opposition party leader made any mention of Mr Gandhi or his party.
Congress’ Lok Sabha leader Mallikarjun Kharge, who read out Sonia Gandhi’s message at the gathering, said in his own pithy remarks: “Even if there is no meeting of hearts among us, let there be a meeting of hands!” In a sense, this is not very different from Mr Jaitley’s “non-Rahul” observation, which aims to underline that the BJP’s opponents have no one in mind to challenge Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
Evidently, there is no unanimity among the Opposition parties on making Mr Gandhi their prospective leader, should they win the next Lok Sabha election. Indeed, two prominent regional leaders — Ms Banerjee herself and BSP supremo Mayawati — have made no secret of their own ambition to be PM.
From even before the Kolkata rally, the BJP’s main weapon against its opponents had been to question the Opposition on the question of who would be their PM choice. This is because the saffron party is keen to convert the 2019 polls, as it had done in 2014, into a presidential one where the electorate is invited to judge an Opposition leader against Mr Modi. Numerous BJP leaders have sought to underline this theme. Mr Jaitley said there would be “chaos” in the absence of Mr Modi.
This is a straightforward partisan line, and this is because in 2014 Mr Modi was presenting himself on his much hyped-record of the so-called “Gujarat model” of development, that has now been shown to be a dud, to challenge then PM Manmohan Singh, who was accused of ignoring corruption and slowing down growth. In 2019, however, it’s Mr Modi who has to defend his record. Many of his government’s policies have been relentlessly questioned, as has been the Rafale fighter deal on matters relating to probity.
While suggesting that 2019 looks like 2014 in many ways, the finance minister has also likened 2019 to 1971, when a “grand alliance” of the then Opposition parties got together to try and topple then PM Indira Gandhi. They failed miserably. Although weakened by the 1969 Congress split, Mrs Gandhi campaigned on her famous slogan of “Garibi Hatao”, and could summon her bank nationalisation and privy purses’ abolition record as proof. In contrast, Mr Modi can only show a new reservation scheme for the upper caste poor introduced just weeks before the election.
A new game is unfolding and the past is no guide here.
