Gloves are off — and both the challenger and the incumbent have taken calculated, yet maximalist positions ahead of the next bout. For the Congress and the BJP, the stakes in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections are understandably high. With 14 months to the polls, both are testing and fine-tuning narratives they can present to the people.
The Congress, unlike the BJP, faces challenges on two fronts. One within the opposition grouping, and one outside against the BJP. Its inability to challenge the BJP in a direct contest — the state and Lok Sabha polls — has severely dented the Congress’ standing as the natural leader of the anti-BJP forces. In some states like Bihar and Jharkhand, it is now piggy-riding on regional parties to remain relevant. In Maharashtra, despite a committed vote-base, the Congress is having to play third fiddle to the NCP and the Shiv Sena.
Aspersion on the Congress’ ability to mount a challenge to the Modi-Shah combine has often been articulated by regional satraps. Akhilesh Yadav in Uttar Pradesh remains uncomfortable in aligning with the grand old party. Trinamool Congress chief Mamata Banerjee has questioned the Congress’ ability to provide a credible alternative to the BJP.
Under the circumstances, it is but obvious that the Congress has had to take a combative and confrontationist position to the BJP to assert its leadership in the opposition ranks.
The Congress’ strategic move to push the envelope also seems to emanate from the Himanchal Pradesh elections where it was able to elbow out the BJP in a one-on-one battle in an upper-caste majority state.
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The Challenge For Rahul Gandhi And Congress
In politics, nothing succeeds like success, especially electoral success. The proof of Congress’ pudding, however, remains to be tested on a larger gathering in four assembly elections later this year — Karnataka, followed by Rajasthan, Chhattisgarh and Madhya Pradesh. In all these states, the Congress will take on the BJP in a direct contest.
The Adani case, followed by Rahul Gandhi’s combative stance in London and his disqualification from Parliament may get the Congress leadership the necessary limelight, but to translate this into electoral success needs layered and nuanced messaging. The Congress needs to ask if the rhetoric on Savarkar and Golwalkar has the potential to generate electoral dividends. If the answer is in not in the affirmative, what could be the thrust of an alternative cogent political argument?
The challenge, thus, for Rahul Gandhi and Congress is to first identify social classes and groups, which would form the building block of its electoral formation, sift through issues which have a direct bearing on these communities and start communicating with them on those specific issues within the larger ambit of the non-BJP polity.
The Rafael campaign and the Congress’ victory in Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh in 2018 were not enough to dent the BJP’s electoral prospects in 2019. That is why, the Congress has to look beyond the means and measures deployed in the last general elections.
The Congress’ aggression on the Hindengurg Research report has also forced the BJP to revisit the drawing board. The narrative to bundle the opposition as a ‘coalition of corruption’ would face a strong counter veiling the challenge on Adani issue. Precisely the reason why the party has fallen back on tested issues and narratives that have delivered it rich electoral dividends beyond the pale of Hindutva mobilisation, which is caste and community mobilisation.
There is empirical evidence to suggest that the BJP has been the biggest beneficiary of OBC or backward consolidation in Indian politics. The intermediary castes form the largest voting block across the country and BJP attempt to link Rahul Gandhi’s disqualification to this social block is to rally around these communities on a common issue.
Elections are a test of competing narratives. At the end of the polling, only one prevails.
The author is an independent journalist who writes on politics and policy.
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